Ends of the Earth
University of Alaska Press, Alaska Literary Series (2017)
"In graceful, near-languorous fashion, Kate Partridge, poet-explorer, engages the reader's desire to know the Unknown's "end," where, (as she writes): "If she can identify all the objects in the sky, she believes in order." We move beyond the state of Alaska and its local aura of "earth's end"--beyond Donne's compass and new and old science-- into the "objects" that swirl in this poet's various imaginative "skies". This earth and its ends are Partridge's new/old terrain--epic to anecdotal--Gilgamesh to neuroscience to her engaging new "field guide," drawn in stunning collage-maps illumined by previous trackers, including the bold cartography of Adrienne Rich. Most blurbs are often repetitive puffery, it's true. But before you dismiss this one-- please follow this guide to "grieving wonder," these poems that follow their own fearless course: "Build temples out of firewood and burn them down."
-Carol Muske-Dukes
"Kate Partridge’s debut collection of poetry, Ends of the Earth, is wholly original, a work at once breathtakingly new and sincerely aware of and beholden to its forbearers, as a true original should be. The book is epic and intimate, expansive and tender, learned and, at times, delightfully dry in its humor. Partridge is an explorer and in the book’s title poem, she sets the stage for her peregrination to the ends of the earth: “. . .boundaries are sites of inquiry rather than edges/ consistently shifting and fantastical: the potential/ for something else/ greater or more awesome than.”
-Eric Pankey
"Ends of the Earth is a geography of transitions, a remote cabin with snowy mountains, wild blueberries, not-so-distant bears, a field guide to places where knowing and not knowing meet as creative act. With beauty and humor, Kate Partridge maps the language between daily experience and discovery, ancient literature and 21st century relationships, science and pseudoscience. As you read Partridge's explorations of Whitman and phrenology, run your hands over your head to find where the bumps are. Like the meditative topography of this book, the body, too, is a map of transitions."
-Mel Nichols
THINE
Tupelo Press, forthcoming in Fall 2023
Editors' Note: "In a literary landscape filled with straightforward autobiographical writing, Kate Partridge is a singular voice, offering poems as mysterious as they are rewarding, erudite, and expansive. One of Partridge’s great gifts is the ability to explore the porous boundary between self and world, to interrogate the ever-shifting nature of the artistic self as it enters into conversation with literature, art, and philosophy. However, to say that Partridge’s THINE simply represents a distinctive approach at the moment would be to greatly underestimate her powers as a writer. In “Fanfare for the Dinosaurs, or, The Trumpeter,” Partridge writes, “As if I had done a thing to deserve it / this delight.” These lines describe precisely our experience of reading Partridge’s work. THINE is an achievement, and Partridge’s star is clearly rising."
