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My Autobiography
Poetry. A new book of poems by the author of You, Me & The Insects and Love Makes Thinking Dark. "In this witty, post-Oulipian take on you-are-what-you-read, Henning dispossesses, recycles, and levels out the singular lines she lifts from the likes of Bataille, Joyce, or Gertrude Stein, all the way to authors of travel aned cookbooks that sit on her shelves. The resulting seventy-one 'sonnets' sound their orphaned music: 'strangers now, but once we were lovers' with the hidden glee of the artist behind her console, sampling, spinning, shredding, and remixing. My Autobiography is a concept, a mirror, a community: see you there!"--Chris Tysh.
A Day Like Today
Poetry. "Reading Barbara Henning's poems is always completely refreshing. Perhaps it has to do with that "swerve" between the bumpy pavement under the bicycle wheel and the ring of radiation around the Earth, from the political to the completely mundane. I get caught up in the poem's movement. So deft, so seemingly easy, with an almost folk-art clarity in the weaving, these poems nonetheless make things really weird—I don't get it!—and suddenly I'm in the world, "to be here right now"—how did I get here?"—Matvei Yankelvich
In Between
Poetry. "After the pharmicist sends the boy to the doctor, he agrees to remove his eyebrow ring. Prior to the witch's refusal to offer a remedy, his mother puts a stake in her womb. In the interim, tangled and indecipherable designs are tattooed on our breasts by big Teddy in Brooklyn." Short texts are presented in between cover images by Miranda Maher in this short book by Barbara Henning. Among the many titles by Henning available from SPD are HOW TO READ AND WRITE IN THE DARK, ME AND MY DOG and the recent novel, BLACK LACE.
Ferne
"Ferne is a time capsule of mid-century Detroit, a city poised to explode. Its sounds, scents, and sights spill forth, as vividly experienced by a vibrant young woman whose life would end too soon. Ferne joyously curates her own life; that's the heart of this book. But we also encounter her through the fervent eyes of her daughter, poet and novelist Barbara Henning, who lyrically fills in and fleshes out the social contours and details of the ghostly presence that haunts these pages. Through her daughter's skilled hands, Ferne comes to life again on these pages, bringing with her glimpses of the city she loved so deeply"--
Just Like That
Henning's fictional memoir takes place in New York City with flash backs to Detroit in the 70s. The characters are developed through daily short vignettes. The narrator, Sara, a teacher, poet and yoga practitioner, falls in love with her acupuncturist and finds herself helping him raise a small child while living together in her tiny studio in the East Village. Both she and Jabari grew up in working class families, married and had children. Sara lost her mother when she was 11 years old, and her father was emotionally absent. Jabari grew up with both parents, but his mother was physically abusive, and unlike Sara, he was African American growing up in a racist society. With shared interests ...
Thirty Miles to Rosebud
Fiction. "THIRTY MILES TO ROSEBUD depicts a series of imploding families and fast interstates. Barbara Henning's landscapes--a rust-belt childhood, a nearly forgotten East Village Bohemia and the arid Southwest streaked with the setting sun--are populated by runaways, lost loves and lifelong betrayals. In this remarkable novel, Henning's eye for detail and her emotional honesty enables the past to loom in the rear-view mirror long after the car has sped by"--Donald Breckenridge.
Me and My Dog
Poetry. Haunting solitary city-dweller's ruminations bring to mind Blake, Rumi, and Whitman. This poet's dog waits for her owner to finally return, again and again. In thundering steps on the street's pavement, linked pantoum-like lyrics meditate on the nature of existence from apartment views. You were sound asleep. I laid my hands on your face/ The drugs were floating beneath the surface of your skin// The dictionary I had on my shelf is still on my shelf/ If only I could touch the floor with the palms of my hands// If you sit here long enough you'll see everyone you know// We are merely crossing over into another season (Out of Harm's Way).
You, Me and the Insects
Fiction. YOU, ME, AND THE INSECTS is cumulative, thenarrative, detail by detail, drawing the reader into Gina's tense andecstatic experiences as she travels from the East Village to south India tostudy with a Brahmin acharya, a master teacher of meditation, philosophy andhatha yoga. While negotiating daily life in a third world country, Gina alsoconducts a careful examination of her present reactions, as well as her lifeduring the 70s in Detroit when she lived in a bohemian community with herlover and family. Her teacher instructs her in how to transform hersamskara--impressions left from previous actions--so that the present momentbecomes illuminated. Other Barbara Henning titles available from SPD are her poetry collections MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY, LOVE MAKES THINKING DARK, and SMOKING IN THE TWILIGHT BAR.
Cities and Memory
Poetry. "Barbara Henning's new book brings together several years of her atonal musings on autobiography, place and longing. Lyrical bursts punctuate the narrator's otherwise seamless restlessness--Detroit, New York, Tucson, and India. The following Escheresque lines from one of Henning's narrators could well have been spoken by Nella Larsen's Helga Crane: 'Why am I here, I think, when I could be there? Because if I were there, I'd be thinking why am I here when I could be there.' As lopsided as a grin on the edge of a nervous grimace ('sex is an ever available age old temporary cure for sadness'), CITIES AND MEMORY is a disjunctive incarnation of a simple, profound ethos: 'Don't forget me, he said.' And Henning doesn't"--Tyrone Williams.
