rife (Poems)

Stefanie Marlis' first book of poetry, Slow Joy, won the Brittingham Prize from the University of Wisconsin in 1989 and the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award in 1990. She has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as three California Prizes: two Marin Arts Council Awards and the Joseph Henry Jackson Award. Her work has been published in numerous journals, including Zyzzyva, Arshile, American Poetry Review, Poetry, Manoa, The Gettysburg Review, and Volt. Marlis has taught at the College of Marin, San Francisco State University, and the University of San Francisco. She now makes her living as a freelance copywriter. In this capacity, she has recently written a book called The Art of the Bath for Chronicle Books. Marlis now lives in San Anselmo with her dog, Io.

"Marlis . . . is a good-natured and empathetic poet whose light philosophizing begins in simple things: buttons, sand, stars, flowers. . . . In her tranquil verse, Marlis prefers a world 'where kindness is possible,' where we must soften ourselves for love. The abundance suggested by the title ('there's so much of so much") is spoken to by a lexicon of 15 impressionistic 'definitions,' each of them an association of images built up from a word."-Kirkus Reviews

"rife is Stefanie Marlis's most complex book, her most experimental. It spins faster on postmodern prayerwheels. The title poem is one of a series of 'definition' poems, poems that seem to spark off the dictionary and its 'free play of signifiers.' And these poems have an open-ended, indeterminate quality that feels new in her work. The poem oscillates between 'abundance,' with its connotations of richness, and 'rife,' with its more weedy, out of control association."-Poetry Flash

"rife beautifully indulges the joy in wordplay all language lovers have. In each poem is a delightful discovery, a surprise in recognizing the event and the exactness of the poem's meaning and imagery. Stefanie Marlis has exceptional talent in both metaphor and revelation; her images subtly build into fresh vision. The poem 'The World' describes bravery in the attempt to rewrite a friend's life, like 'a threaded needle pu