Force of Flesh
by Linda Tieber

poems and prose

"Force of Flesh is the most condensed, varied, and energetic fiery writing I have seen in a long, long time! It would be impossible to find anyone else to fully compare your work to, but I find myself thinking that it might be similar to James Joyce...if Joyce had known how to write poetry at all comparable to his prose, and if he had lived in the 21st century...and had been a woman. Yet it also has a dark and mysterious power that reminds me at times of Weldon Kees, and at times of a female Norman Mailer. At all times, it is very rich in imagery and nonlinear thought with a very full range of emotion at play and a wonderfully ambiguous sense of time and space."

--Jared Smith

“Linda Tieber has put together a collection full of startling pronouncements, frightening turns, strange images, and memorable glimpses into otherworlds. This is a hybrid, but to read this poetry and prose as a mingled utterance is thrilling. Tieber’s voice and vision are completely unique and Force of Flesh as sensual and insistently powerful as its title.”

--Laura Kasischke

“I am very moved by the work of Linda Tieber. In her new book, Force of Flesh, she writes about the struggles that bring many of us to a halt, with courage and a distance that makes the suffering all too real again. Writing at her best, Tieber’s lines speak with the authority of a mature writer who has found her voice. These opening lines in Force of Flesh set the scene for an intense and challenging read.

‘The first thrust is very difficult
since you have nothing
to compare it with,
not knowing the strength required,
the pressure you'll be up against,
the force of flesh.’

I will read this book again soon.”

-Dennis Bernstein

“There are many irons in the fire of Force of Flesh, which is a heady amalgam of poetry and prose, but one central one is the Browning-like centering on the monologue or set of observations of a character in an unnamed (un-continented, for that matter) tropical country. In the longest piece in the collection, a man watches, alternately chagrined and made proud by the way his developer brother transforms an unspoiled beachcomber’s paradise into a tony resort for the rich. Saying this, I’m making the story more straightforward than it is in that Tieber centers her narrative on acute psychological notations and unexpected comic turns in the plot. This is shown in a poem where a madman holds a restaurant hostage then reads a list of five people he is going to shoot. The heroine, top of the list – this is the unexpected turn – asks if she can finish her dinner first since she waited so long for it. The book is filled with such startling situations, though they are usually less outlandish, portrayed from wry angles in a shimmering style. In short, Tieber is a well-balanced oddball.”

-Jim Feast

“Force of Flesh takes us behind the eyes of Linda Tieber. Reading it, I was seeing things in a truly fresh way. Each piece is a vision. Every nightmare is exquisite. One emerges with all sense sharpened.”

–Ted Jonathan

“Linda Tieber’s Force of Flesh is a feast of detached darkness revealing the eyes of the flesh. Tieber’s secret visions, which ultimately we recognize as our own, cover a spectrum of temperate activity that is universal to diverse cultures. Then, her sudden but incredibly smooth interruption of nicety into subterranean hedonistic thoughts and the monstrous mental gymnastics of serial killers intimates that our inherent temptations of flesh can either be transformed to higher purpose as evidenced by Tieber’s incredibly beautiful and truthful poetry, or uncontrollably acted out. Don’t miss her “Monterey” where you get to hear and feel the sensual experience of being serenely bounced upon water.”

-Alice Shapiro

Excerpt:

Underbelly

Linda Tieber A former journalist, pianist, model, and rock band manager, Linda has also worked as assistant to CEOs, a Nobel Laureate, and a wild game hunter. Turning to poetry and fiction after a spot at the Wall Street Journal, she's a long-time associate and former literary editor at the provocative poetry magazine The New York Quarterly where she interviewed poet Sharon Olds, Pound scholar Hugh Kenner and Grove Press publishing maverick Barney Rosset. American psychologist Julian Jaynes credited the birth of consciousness to the breakdown of what he termed the "bicameral mind". Linda continues to expand beyond these two chambers to previously untouched territories. Australian by birth, she grew up in Northern California and currently resides in New York City.