Perfect Bound, 70 pages
5½ by 8½ inches, 1993
ISBN# 0-941240-18-5
$8.00
This is an older book. We will ship the best copy available.
The ink used in the cover of this book began to fade and wear shortly after publication.
$3.00 added to cart for shipping.
Praise for Languid Love Lyrics
Languid Love Lyrics is a valiant follow up to The Moon Cycle in that it succeeds in unmasking Love’s vibrant nuances in boisterous surreal cadences without sacrificing core realist intentions. Ms. Mihopoulos employs a grander, yet fluid, vocabulary, distilling seldom written distinctions quickly dissipated in the sudden moments of enthrall… Languid Love Lyrics is smartly structured intimacy, miles from clumsy confessional school whining. It brings Love’s many wondrous and tragic variables into cultural perspective and emotional content.
Mark Anthony Rossi – New Thought Journal
…through her poetic craft and experience, she is able to strike multiple chords within the psyche of almost any reader… Yet it would not be fair to imply these poems despair. They are solid works of art which stand on their own. In their power, they are reminiscent of Plath in her final years. Referring back to the old Love and Death theme. Plath, of course, chose death. Unlike Love, it never disappoints, always delivers in the end. Perhaps Love, despite its inevitable losses and defeats provides a more survivable route. Mihopoulos has survived a quarter century in the poetry scene as a constant if often ignored and underrated voice, an admirable accomplishment in itself. And her work should survive much longer.
Eva Von Kesselhausen – Small Press Review
There is quite a bit of magic in this book, which jumps out at you and surprises you, especially in Mihopoulos’ longer works… Mihopoulos’s longer works are her strength. When she gets on a roll, the development of the piece engages, and the true passion of the “love lyric” becomes evident… There are on-going themes throughout the book: angles and wings; mythology and travel; tin=me, noise and reading; and, of course, love. Mihopoulos has done a great job of sequencing the pieces of her book. Whatever you want, you’ll find it in there, from the short and sweet to the long and juicy, to the in-between., Get it, love it, sing it.
Lydia Tomkiw – Letter Ex
About Effie Mihopoulos
Effie Milhopoulos’ poetry appeared in over 200 small press publications throughout the US, UK and Europe. Efstathia Milhopoulos was born in Chicago, moved to Greece from the age of 10 to 16, and then returned to Chicago. She studied with Ed Dorn at Northeastern Illinois University where she earned her Masters degree in Literature. In 1974 she started Ommation Press which eventually published 40 books. She was involved with Apocalypse Magazine from NEIU and published MATI poetry magazine and Salome a magazine of dance writing and critique. She worked at The Chicago Artist’s Coalition and The Chicago Sun Times. Her poems were featured on Dial-A-Poem programs and made into dramatic productions. She was an arts writer and her articles appeared in Stagebill, The Chicago Reader, Spotlight, Attitude, PerformInk, Small Press Review, Strong Coffee and Letter Ex. Effie died in 2010.
Contents
An invitation
Aces
Safety Net
The Army
Throwing the Dice: A Bagatelle
The Transformations of Love
The City
Betrayal
Pillage
Bullseye
Visualizing a Dance Duet
Salome
The Batter and Batter Me: A Modern Aura
The Answer, Then. Is No
Bronze Suicide
Double-Header: The Dirge
Glass
Thrift Shop[
Coloratura
Nostalgia Is A Nonsense Word
Permanence
Six Ways in Which to Disintegrate
Still Life
A Visit to the Studio
Shade
Puppets
Chimera
Where Words Are not Enough
Repetitions
Mythology
Satyr
Love Play
Changes
Testing. Testing, 1-2-3
Jimi
Performance
Drumbeat
Carrot on a Stick
Gold and Silver
Backbend
Christmas Poem 1979
Forecast
The Piano: Blue Feathers
Coming Home in the Snow
Glowing
Lover’s Masque
Lies
Duet
Encores
Treasure Chest
Sun Worship
The Workhorse
Sour Preserves
Angels
Demosthenes Performing
Floridian
There are Times When The Heart Is
A Stranger
Take a Walk
Sample Poems
Bronze Suicide
each time you look inside that guilt-framed mirror,
your face turns into a shadow of itself,
cracks into seven years of bad luck
and you remember your baby shoes,
tucked away inside a drawer by your mother
how she always wanted to have them bronzed,
but didn’t.
what a waste it would have been,
how it would have made the burden heavier.
but you could have used them as a weapon against
this mirror, one hand swing
and crack!
The Workhorse
I am inside the gears of
a clock that beats time
like a metronome
the quicker they move
the more sluggish I feel
I sit back, guilt accumulating
at the mere mention of relaxation
the thought of it such a luxury
I am under the influence of time
how it gathers against itself
passes quickly
and is lost to me
a memory only
like my first lover
this working disease
that forces me each day
to produce my quota
like George Sand
another lady writing
at night
in the country
in the city
while traveling
across the mountains
always the production scale
measures against
the clock ticking in the background
accusatory
reminding me
of the futility
of all that I hold scared
how in the end
all my efforts are spent in vain
like the purchase of a lottery ticket
only one person wins
in a million
that person is never me
it is always someone else I know
someone else
that I have never seen
someone else, deserving or undeserving
who cashes in the ticket
my pockets, never comprising laurels
contain instead, ticket stubs and
lists of things to do
there is never enough time
despite my insomnia
there are never enough hours
I count them
over and over again
1-24
they never change
always the same parade
the same stage
cluttered with too many actors
if I read a book
the magazines go untended
if I write a letter
the mail goes unread
if i teach a class
my poems go unwritten
a thousand chores
I have set myself
& never enough time to accomplish them
when I socialize, talking to people
I like or dislike
I digress
& everything is 10 steps behind
a schedule
that is already delayed
the pendulum on the metronome
goes back and forth
forward in time
& then returning to the present
I have never reconciled myself
to this
that I can never do everything
I intended
I build a universe of words
out of clay
when I forget to put it in the oven
everything crumbles
I look at the pieces
on the floor
& can’t bring myself
to seep them in to the garbage
they gather dust over the years
people step on or over them
their shape changes
until they dissolve
into nothing
as if they had never existed
the paper I write in
once white
is now yellowed
like old photographs
it is always the same opponent
that works against me
relentlessly counting out the exercises
like a ballet-master
always a count too fast
I can never catch up to him
only imitate the steps
never quite reproducing them perfectly
This is an older book. We will ship the best copy available.
Some fading and slight wear of the book is possible.
$3.00 added to cart for shipping.
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