# More than the Measured World

- Link: https://writersworkshopindia.com/2015/07/19/more-than-the-measured-world/
- Published: 2015-07-19T18:26:34+00:00
- Author: admin

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**Author:** Robin Standish
 **Pages:** 76 **Year of Publication:** 2011 **Price:**
HB Rs 150 / $10 (USD), FB $7 **ISBN:** HB 978-81-8157-987-4 (9788181579874) FB 978-
81-8157-988-1 (9788181579881)

_**About the Author**_
 Robin Standish’s poems have appeared in the _Alaska Quarterly
Review, Gargoyle_ and other American journals as well as _Ajanta_, an international
journal published in Calcutta. Her work has been translated into Bengali, Shona 
as well as European languages. Her participation in the Metaphor Project links her
writing and social change interests.

Following graduate work in cultural anthropology and journalism, Robin worked with
women-serving and environmental non-profit organizations. Through the Global Fund
for Women, she consulted collaboratively with international NGOs during the 1990s,
primarily in India, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Cote d’Ivoire. At present, she lives
in Berkeley, California.

_**Teaser**_

_Suppressed Identity_

We weren’t prepared, Mother,
 to hear your startling wish to drive a huge, red logging
truck down Donner Pass;

you, the woman of impeccably
 manicured hands, who never sat without attending to
the parallel slant of her legs.

Driving through the Sierras that day,
 we saw a flash of you as you might have been–
concert pianist, CFO, or, yes, even mountain truck driver.

Let this poem be a cautionary tale for mothers
 who’d suppress their impish joy “
for the children’s sake”; know that we celebrate not your perfect ladyness,

but those rare occasions when you
 plucked flowers from a stranger’s garden, served
French Toast for dinner, or firmly placed your perfect feet on Don’t Walk grass.

_**Contents**_
 PART ONE WHAT THE CHILD KNEW

Under the Grand Piano / 11
 At Home / 14 No One Knew / 16 August 6, 1945: _How She
Remembers the Day_ / 17 What the Child Learned / 18 The Sibling Cycle (_seven short
poems_) / 19 Wayward Opal / 26 Small Debut / 28 Aunt Lucy’s Lesson / 30 The Pack/
32 Suppressed Identity / 33 Ties / 34 What My Parents Loved / 35

PART TWO
 MORE THAN THE MEASURED WORLD

First Light / 39
 Summit Road Duet / 40 Quakers in the Orchard / 42 Dream Lesson/
44 In Praise of Persimmons / 47 Window / 49 Blessed by Magic / 50 Function, Space,
Capture (_three small poems_) / 51 Doing Her / 52 On Being Led through Aural Light/
54 Within the Body of the Cloth / 56 The Angel of the Future / 59 Winged Man / 60
Fallow Dreams / 62 Blood Pool / 64 Crossing / 66 Inclining toward Grace / 68