A Woman of Property

September 20, 2016
A Woman of Property book cover
Robyn Schiff
ISBN: 
978-0-14-312827-4

University of Iowa English Professor Robyn Schiff has published a new book, A Woman of Property (Penguin Poets).

The book was named a “Most Anticipated Book of Spring 2016” byPublisher’s Weekly, which also gave it a starred reviewA Woman of Property was also featured in National Public Radio’s 2016 Poetry Preview, and was favorably reviewed by The New York Times.

From Amazon.com:

“Located in a menacing, gothic landscape, the poems that comprise A Woman of Property draw formal and imaginative boundaries against boundless mortal threat, but as all borders are vulnerable, this ominous collection ultimately stages an urgent and deeply imperiled boundary dispute where haunting, illusion, the presence of the past, and disembodied voices only further unsettle questions of material and spiritual possession. This is a theatrical book of dilapidated houses and overgrown gardens, of passageways and thresholds, edges, prosceniums, unearthings, and root systems. The unstable property lines here rove from heaven to hell, troubling proportion and upsetting propriety in the name of unfathomable propagation. Are all the gates in this book folly? Are the walls too easily scaled to hold anything back or impose self-confinement? What won't a poem do to get to the other side?”

Schiff is an associate professor in the Department of English, part of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. She has published two other poetry collections, Revolver and Worth. Her work has been represented in several anthologies and published widely in journals.