Chinoiserie

Poems this nuanced and strong, wild and grave, seem to be written with a feather and a chisel. They are that delicate, that indelible.

Alice Fulton
Cover Design: Jeff Clark
(Ahsahta Press © 2012)
ISBN: 978-1934103258

Winner of the 2011 Sawtooth Poetry Prize, an SPD Books Bestseller, and named by The Volta as one of the best books of 2012 in its Friday Feature, Chinoiserie travels through centuries in poems that carve wonder from ruin, from an illuminated manuscript to New York on the eve of disaster, the Emperor’s nightingale to neon aquariums.

A sensory flight—intricate in its vision, Ecclesiastic in its hunger—this book of curiosities is inspired by 15th-century masters, film, anime, Marguerite Duras, and other sources.

In his judge’s citation, Paul Hoover writes, “Karen Rigby sees with feeling the magic of things shaped by language…But here also are the musical cadence, subject range, and ceremonial precision of true poetry…This is, quite simply, a gorgeous and powerful book.”

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Preview the table of contents.pdf

Dense, unpredictable images and beautifully unlikely sounds evoke not only a sensory universe but also a rigorous mind, on which nothing, from art or life, is lost.

Adrienne Su

Chinoiserie

“…her work is distinguished by the completeness of its sense — sharp as an animal’s — of the world at the page’s edge…”

Poetry London

Explore the Book

What I started to tell you / had something to do with hunger

Selected Past Events


UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH-GREENSBURG

Written/Spoken Series
3/17/15, 7:00 p.m.
Greensburg, Pennsylvania
w/ Tessa Sarver

SAINT VINCENT COLLEGE

Saint Vincent College
Visiting Writers Series
3/16/15, 5:30 p.m.
Latrobe, Pennsylvania

University of Arizona

Tucson Festival of Books
3/15/14, 4:00 p.m.
Tucson, Arizona
w/ Sharon Suzuki-Martinez

POETICS RESEARCH BUREAU

951 Chung King Road
12/14/13, 7:45 p.m.
Los Angeles, California
w/ Sara Mumolo

FIRST FRIDAY POETRY

Changing Hands
8/2/13, 7:00 p.m.
Tempe, Arizona
w/ Arisa White

POETRY CENTER

The University of Arizona
Poetry Center

7/25/13, 7:00 p.m.
Tucson, Arizona
w/ Anne Shaw & Melissa Buckheit

TEMPE POETRY IN APRIL

Tempe Center for the Arts
4/17/13, 7:00 p.m.
Tempe, Arizona

CASA LIBRE

Edge 49: A Reading Series of Emerging and Younger Poets
11/28/12, 7:30 p.m.
Tucson, Arizona
w/ Annie Guthrie & Lisa Levine

RICE UNIVERSITY

Cherry Reading Series
11/8/12, 7:00 p.m.
Brazos Bookstore
Houston, Texas
w/ Matt Hart

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

First Books Reading
4/22/12, 7:00 p.m.
Weisman Art Museum
Minneapolis, Minnesota
w/ Peter Geye, Arlene Kim & Paul Metsa

BOOKFAIR SIGNING

AWP Chicago
3/2/12, 2:00 p.m.
Ahsahta Press
Chicago, Illinois

AWP CHICAGO (OFFSITE)

Ahsahta/Counterpath Reading
3/1/12, 7:00 p.m.
Film Row Cinema
Columbia College
Chicago, Illinois