About this item
"A terrific and sometimes terrifying collection -- morally complex, rhythmic, tough-minded, and original." -- Rosanna Warren, 2018 Barnard Women Poets Prize citationIn a poetic voice at once accessible and otherworldly, gutsy and insightful, U.S. Army veteran Karen Skolfield offers a rare glimpse of a female soldier's training and mental conditioning. Through the narratives of a young soldier, her older counterpart, and her fellow soldiers, Skolfield searches for meaning in combat preparation, long-term trauma, and the way war is embedded in our language and psyche.
About the Author
For my bio, I'll give the formal version, followed by an irreverent version written by a friend.Here's the formal version: Karen Skolfield's book Battle Dress (W. W. Norton, 2019) won the Barnard Women Poets Prize. Her book Frost in the Low Areas (Zone 3 Press) won the 2014 PEN New England Award in poetry and the First Book Award from Zone 3 Press, and is a Massachusetts "Must Read" selection. She is the poet laureate for Northampton, Massachusetts, for 2019-2021.Skolfield is the winner of the 2016 Jeffrey E. Smith Editors' Prize in poetry from The Missouri Review, the 2015 Robert H. Winner award from the Poetry Society of America, and the 2015 Arts & Humanities Award from New England Public Radio. She has received fellowships and awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Split This Rock, Ucross Foundation, Hedgebrook, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Vermont Studio Center. Skolfield is a U.S. Army veteran and teaches writing to engineers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she earned her Master of Fine Arts.A bit dry, but that's my lit cred. A far juicier introduction was written by a good friend for a reading of ours: "Karen is married to an electrical engineering professor, which is a field of engineering that is opaque and difficult even to other engineers. She has the same job as I do and is much better at it. She's traveled everywhere. She was in the Army. She's even-headed and sincere and enthusiastic, so much so, that I wonder why she ever associates with me. She almost never listens to music. She doesn't know what's on TV. Her kids are cool and curious and patient. For every cigarette I've ever smoked, she's run a mile. She's a great XC skier. Her only weakness I know of is she's afraid of pond ice. But she skates all the time. "Whenever I think 'What would Karen do? ' I realize that whatever it is, she would have got up earlier and got it done already. She goes to a writing retreat twice a year. She will outlive me by decades."She has listened to me complain about almost everything possible and is still willing to speak to me. "I bet she's really bad at wasting time."
