House of Sugar, House of Stone (Mountain West Poetry Series)

Emily Pérez's House of Sugar, House of Stone weaves Grimm's Fairy Tales into the business of modern life—laptops and late nights with sleepless children—to explore an undercurrent of terror about living in a family. These poems slip between the worlds of the wolf-haunted forest and the harried house of the contemporary artist/parent, until the two blend and bleed into each other. Children learn not to trust their parents, while simultaneously yearning to win back their affections. Parents similarly question their own trustworthiness as protectors. They are devoured by children, which leaves them equally apt to dismember a lion to protect their young as they are to leave those children alone in the woods. These musical, emotionally ruthless pieces occasionally find respite, but Perez reminds us that despite our best efforts to map our way to safety: "Either way / you're lost. Either way / you'll wander into deeper woods." [part] I. Lullaby -- Under The Roof -- Each Day I Open The Door To Damage -- Directions -- A New Mother Discovers Emptiness -- Self Portrait As A Dam -- The Flood -- Mother Love -- The Meow's The Thing- -- Further Thoughts On Responsibility -- Nose Tip, -- Wheat Field With Crows -- Tide Pools; Dear Daughter, -- Sweet Seed, Sweet Poison -- To The Artist's Child -- Pre-term -- Child's Story -- -- Because We Left The City -- Units Of Measure -- Aubade -- Abandon -- Proposal -- The Birth Of Doubt -- Advice To My Younger Self -- Fall -- Raveling Round The Lake -- Dust Storm -- We Cannot Sleep Alone -- Verge -- Child, -- Epithalamium On A Theory Of Gravitythe Barnyard Of It -- Creator, I Try -- Advice To My Younger Self: Winter -- Dear Creation, I Confess, [part] Ii. Further Thoughts On Abandon -- Two = Part Invention -- Perfect Wife -- Processional -- How I Learned To Love -- Offering -- Crossroads -- We Wanted More -- Later; Sometimes, Silence -- In Which I First Discovered -- Encounter -- Spider Season -- Master; Wanting Not Wanting -- Presage -- Husband, -- On A Photograph -- Carrying On -- It Did Not Happen As You'd Hoped -- Unsettling -- Lullaby -- Hungry -- Little Song -- Clutch -- Before And After -- Afterlife -- Hush -- Revision -- Ambition -- Preface -- Never Have -- Coda. Emily Pérez. These Poems Are Suggested By Themes And Characters Found In Grimm's Fairy Tales. Cover -- Contents -- Lullaby -- Under the Roof -- Each Day I Open the Door to Damage -- DIrections -- A New Mother Discovers Emptiness -- Self Portrait as a Dam -- The Flood -- Mother Love -- The Meow's the Thing- -- Further Thoughts on Responsibility -- Nose Tip, -- Wheat Field with Crows -- Tide Pools -- Dear Daughter, -- Sweet Seed, Sweet Poison -- To the Artist's Child -- Pre-Term -- Child's Story -- Because We Left the City -- Units of Measure -- Aubade -- Abandon -- Proposal -- The Birth of Doubt -- Advice to My Younger Self: Fall -- Raveling Round the Lake -- Dust Storm -- We Cannot Sleep Alone -- Verge -- Child, -- Epithalamium on a Theory of Gravity -- The Barnyard of It -- Creator, I Try -- Advice to My Younger Self: Winter -- Dear Creation, I Confess, -- Further Thoughts on Abandon -- Two = Part Invention -- Perfect Wife -- Processional -- How I Learned to Love -- Offering -- Crossroads -- We Wanted More -- Later -- Sometimes, Silence -- In Which I First Discovered -- Encounter -- Spider Season -- Master -- Wanting Not Wanting -- Presage -- Husband, -- On a Photograph -- Carrying On -- It Did Not Happen as You'd Hoped -- Unsettling -- Lullaby -- Hungry -- Little Song -- Clutch -- Before and After -- Afterlife -- Hush -- Revision -- Ambition -- Preface -- Never Have -- Coda -- Notes -- Acknowledgements