Peculiar Motions

Author: Rosmarie Waldrop

Illustrator: Jennifer Macdonald

Publisher: Kelsey Street Press (1990)

Rosmarie Waldrop's poetry draws on the languages of geographical terrain, national histories, painting, music, the body, and the self. Her compositions change from book to book as from day to day. The peculiar motions of the title, are those of an "I" and an "eye," of a poet and a visual artist in dialogue. They define the "self" as "peculiar motions in the head and between the head and throat," a concept attributed to William James. The collaboration preserves the grace of the natural world and the mysterious orders of the ephemeral.