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'Even though we'd grown up in vastly different cultures and countries, we'd both known poverty, domestic violence and the expectation that neither one of us would ever amount to anything. That was probably what united us more than anything: our shared defiance of that prediction.
'She tap-danced on street corners for people's small change. He was an out-of-work university teacher, poet and Vietnam vet. She was white and from Australia. He was black and from the Deep South. They met on Mardi Gras, New Orleans in 1985. She was twenty-two. He was nearly forty.
'They fell in love. They married. What happened next will thrill, move, perplex and enrage you. It will break your heart.
'The Poet's Wife tells the story of the ten years that Mandy Sayer and Yusef Komunyakaa spent together, first as lovers, then as husband and wife. During that time he became a famous poet, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the highest honour for poetry in the United States, and a university professor.
'At the same time, Mandy became a writer, winning the Vogel Prize for young Australian writers for her first novel, Mood Indigo. She is now an acclaimed author and journalist and has written two award-winning memoirs, Velocity and Dreamtime Alice. The Poet's Wife traces her life from the end of Dreamtime Alice, and again confirms Sayer's place as one of our most lyrical and most courageous writers - memoirist like no other.' (Publisher's blurb)
Notes
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Dedication: To Staci
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Large print.
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
- y The Poet's Wife by Mandy Sayer : Notes Melbourne : CAE Book Group , 2015 9282343 2015 single work criticism
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Review : The Poet’s Wife
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Good Reading , April 2014; (p. 61)
— Review of The Poet's Wife 2014 single work autobiography -
Gaslighting
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , April 2014;
— Review of The Poet's Wife 2014 single work autobiography -
Well Read
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 8 February 2014; (p. 24)
— Review of The Poet's Wife 2014 single work autobiography ; A Country in Mind : Memoir with Landscape 2013 single work autobiography prose -
Memoir Strikes Common Chord
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 15-16 March 2014; (p. 18-19)
— Review of The Poet's Wife 2014 single work autobiography
-
Sayer Delves in to Darkness
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 25 January 2013; (p. 19)
— Review of The Poet's Wife 2014 single work autobiography -
Mandy Sayer : The Poet's Wife
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Newtown Review of Books , February 2014;
— Review of The Poet's Wife 2014 single work autobiography -
A Pair of Caged Birds Sing the Blues
Chameleon, Caged Bird and All that Jazz;
Reader, She Married Him
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 8-9 February 2014; (p. 30-31) The Canberra Times , 8 February 2014; (p. 23) The Age , 8 February 2014; (p. 22)
— Review of The Poet's Wife 2014 single work autobiography 'Competing with the demands of two men she loved, the tap-dancing author ended up in a destructive charade.' -
Memoir Strikes Common Chord
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 15-16 March 2014; (p. 18-19)
— Review of The Poet's Wife 2014 single work autobiography -
Well Read
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 8 February 2014; (p. 24)
— Review of The Poet's Wife 2014 single work autobiography ; A Country in Mind : Memoir with Landscape 2013 single work autobiography prose -
Two Lives
2014
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney-Morning Herald , 25-26 January 2014; (p. 24-27) - y The Poet's Wife by Mandy Sayer : Notes Melbourne : CAE Book Group , 2015 9282343 2015 single work criticism
-
What I’m Reading
2014
single work
column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2014;