Draft of a Letter: Phoenix Poets
Autor James Longenbachen Limba Engleză Paperback – 26 mar 2007
From Second Draft:
What other people learn
From birth,
Betrayal,
I learned late.
My soul perched
On an olive branch
Combing itself,
Waving its plumes. I said
Being mortal,
I aspire to
Mortal things.
I need you,
Said my soul,
If you’re telling the truth.
Draft of a Letter is a book about belief—not belief in the unknowable but belief in what seems bewilderingly plain. Pondering the bodies we inhabit, the words we speak, these poems discover infinitude in the most familiar places. The revelation is disorienting and, as a result, these poems talk to themselves, revise themselves, fashioning a dialogue between self and soul that opens outward to include other voices, lovers, children, angels, and ghosts. For James Longenbach, great distance makes the messages we send sweeter. To be divided from ourselves is never to be alone. “If the kingdom is in the sky,” says the body to the soul, “Birds will get there before you.” “In time,” says the awakening soul, “I liked my second / Body better / Than the first.” To live, these poems insist, is to arise every day to the strange magnificence of the people and places we thought we knew best. Draft of a Letter is an unsettled and radiant paradiso, imagined in the death-shadowed, birth-haunted middle of a long life.
Praise for Fleet River
“A sensibility this cogent, this subtle and austere is rare; even rarer is its proof that poetry still flows through all things and transforms all things in the process.”—Carol Muske-Dukes, Los Angeles Times Book Review
What other people learn
From birth,
Betrayal,
I learned late.
My soul perched
On an olive branch
Combing itself,
Waving its plumes. I said
Being mortal,
I aspire to
Mortal things.
I need you,
Said my soul,
If you’re telling the truth.
Draft of a Letter is a book about belief—not belief in the unknowable but belief in what seems bewilderingly plain. Pondering the bodies we inhabit, the words we speak, these poems discover infinitude in the most familiar places. The revelation is disorienting and, as a result, these poems talk to themselves, revise themselves, fashioning a dialogue between self and soul that opens outward to include other voices, lovers, children, angels, and ghosts. For James Longenbach, great distance makes the messages we send sweeter. To be divided from ourselves is never to be alone. “If the kingdom is in the sky,” says the body to the soul, “Birds will get there before you.” “In time,” says the awakening soul, “I liked my second / Body better / Than the first.” To live, these poems insist, is to arise every day to the strange magnificence of the people and places we thought we knew best. Draft of a Letter is an unsettled and radiant paradiso, imagined in the death-shadowed, birth-haunted middle of a long life.
Praise for Fleet River
“A sensibility this cogent, this subtle and austere is rare; even rarer is its proof that poetry still flows through all things and transforms all things in the process.”—Carol Muske-Dukes, Los Angeles Times Book Review
Din seria Phoenix Poets
- Preț: 83.55 lei
- Preț: 86.70 lei
- Preț: 89.24 lei
- Preț: 103.52 lei
- Preț: 107.52 lei
- Preț: 83.14 lei
- Preț: 88.64 lei
- Preț: 86.70 lei
- Preț: 82.78 lei
- Preț: 115.84 lei
- Preț: 88.64 lei
- Preț: 88.07 lei
- Preț: 138.58 lei
- Preț: 158.43 lei
- Preț: 272.38 lei
- Preț: 149.68 lei
- Preț: 157.65 lei
- Preț: 159.17 lei
- Preț: 186.76 lei
- Preț: 215.80 lei
- Preț: 150.92 lei
- Preț: 202.38 lei
- Preț: 150.38 lei
- Preț: 158.80 lei
- Preț: 137.85 lei
- Preț: 256.36 lei
- Preț: 159.36 lei
- Preț: 123.88 lei
- Preț: 211.86 lei
- Preț: 159.17 lei
- Preț: 200.73 lei
- Preț: 117.74 lei
- Preț: 148.53 lei
- Preț: 227.75 lei
- Preț: 158.25 lei
- Preț: 157.36 lei
- Preț: 131.23 lei
- Preț: 149.68 lei
- Preț: 215.07 lei
- Preț: 159.17 lei
- Preț: 168.54 lei
- Preț: 160.61 lei
- Preț: 201.65 lei
- Preț: 150.90 lei
- Preț: 185.84 lei
- Preț: 203.09 lei
- Preț: 159.17 lei
- Preț: 200.73 lei
Preț: 152.03 lei
Nou
Puncte Express: 228
Preț estimativ în valută:
29.11€ • 31.54$ • 24.31£
29.11€ • 31.54$ • 24.31£
Carte tipărită la comandă
Livrare economică 12-26 decembrie
Preluare comenzi: 021 569.72.76
Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780226492681
ISBN-10: 0226492680
Pagini: 64
Dimensiuni: 156 x 216 x 8 mm
Greutate: 0.13 kg
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press
Seria Phoenix Poets
ISBN-10: 0226492680
Pagini: 64
Dimensiuni: 156 x 216 x 8 mm
Greutate: 0.13 kg
Editura: University of Chicago Press
Colecția University of Chicago Press
Seria Phoenix Poets
Notă biografică
James Longenbach is the Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of English at the University of Rochester. He is the author, most recently, of The Resistance to Poetry and Fleet River, both published by the University of Chicago Press.
Cuprins
Acknowledgments
I
Ice Men
Death and Reason
Draft of a Letter
The Gift
Canzone
Joy and Reason
Buried Life
O Tourist
Self and Soul
The Gods in Exile
Ghost Pond
Swallowtail
II
Reason and Sorrow
Complaint
Second Draft
Abacus
Tenzone
Yard Work
Sparrow
Second Life
A Different Route
Self and Soul
Testament
After Petrarch
Ice Men
Death and Reason
Draft of a Letter
The Gift
Canzone
Joy and Reason
Buried Life
O Tourist
Self and Soul
The Gods in Exile
Ghost Pond
Swallowtail
II
Reason and Sorrow
Complaint
Second Draft
Abacus
Tenzone
Yard Work
Sparrow
Second Life
A Different Route
Self and Soul
Testament
After Petrarch
Recenzii
"This, James Longenbach's third collection of poetry, moves between pondering and declaration with such strange force that one can only believe the revelations within these poems."
"Complex and moving, Draft is also quiet, elusive. It asks patience and a willingness to dwell in its unresolved tensions."