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Contributors | November 10, 2009

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Without knowing it, I'd always had two unspoken arrangements with the world. The first was that I would not trouble it with unpleasant conversation... Continue »
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1 Local Warehouse Poetry- A to Z

Part of the Bargain

by Scott Hightower

Part of the Bargain Cover

ISBN13: 9781556592324
ISBN10: 1556592329
Condition: Standard
All Product Details

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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Part of the Bargain, winner of the Hayden Carruth Award and selected from nearly 1,000 entries, is both a cabinet of curiosities and a sweep of philosophical idylls. Hightower's poems range in style and subject, with soliloquies, laments, eccentric ponderings, and contemplations of appetite and art.

From Door to the Terrace

You withdraw from me like a match

From a final cigarette and dance every

Abandonment. The strains of music

That accompany you float away with you.

The book's epigraph evokes a Faustian contract, which is echoed in the tensions between urban and rural, light and dark, moral and amoral action. Hightower's influences-Sappho, Virgil, Blake, and Wilde-make their presence known as he reflects upon life in urban America after growing up in rural Texas, about coming of age as a gay man, about art and artists, poetry and painting.

From Spending the Night

Now, in another part of the country,

I hear it called "staying over."

Back then, a couple of years

was a gaping difference.

The ornately carved door

covering the strings of an upright

melded into the headboard

of the bed . . .

Part of the Bargainalso explores the imperceptible reconciliations that one makes as an individual, a part of a community, and as a conscientious heir to a culture. Valences of sexuality, nationality, literality all swirl together and perform a balancing act as the poet aspires to pull back the curtain of "the ineffable pageantry"of our multilayered lives.

Scott Hightoweris the author of two books of poems, Tin Can Touristand Natural Trouble. His writings have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including Salmagundi, The Yale Review, and The Paris Review. He teaches at Fordham University and New York University and is a contributing editor to The Journal. He lives in New York City.

About the Author

Scott Hightower is the author of two books of poetry. He teaches at Fordham University and is a contributing editor to The Journal. He lives in New York City.

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
curtis cale, April 26, 2009 (view all comments by curtis cale)
Can anyone tell me who won the Pulitizer Prize for poetry in 1952? How about 1967? How about 3 years ago or 7 years ago? I'll bet you can't. What about the Hadyn Carruth prize for any of those years?

The fact of the matter is that while sometimes the Pulitizer is awarded to someone who goes on to be really famous, the usual fate of these other poets is oblivion. Scott Hightower will share this doom. At best, he is a very minor, minor poet--despite all of his attempts at self-promotion. I mean look at all the hype he has managed to gin up for himself on the internet. Mr. Hightower is quite astute at engratiating himself with publishers and editors. He is the Hugh Walpole of his day, whom W. Somerset Maugham so brutally paradied as Alroy Kear in "Cakes and Ale." Maugham said of Walpole:

"Hugh Walpole then was the most prominent member of that body of writers who attempted by seizing every opportunity to keep in the public eye, by getting on familiar terms with critics so that their books may be favorably reviewed, by currying favor wherever it can serve them, to attain a success which their merit scarcely deserves. They attempt by push and pull to make up for their lack of talent." Then, Mr. Maugham goes on to conclude that Hugh Walpole "was easy to like, but difficult to respect."

I believe that sums it up for Scott Hightower's character and abilities. His poems are sensitive and all of a piece when it comes to imagery, but Robert Frost he ain't. Hightower simply lacks depth. Granted his poetry is "poetical"--everything is well written and in its proper place, yet we are left wondering at the lack of substence. Don't expect any thing approaching "Ode to a Grecian Urn" from this boy anytime soon.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9781556592324
Author:
Hightower, Scott
Publisher:
Copper Canyon Press
Subject:
General
Subject:
American - General
Subject:
General Poetry
Copyright:
Series:
Hayden Carruth Award for New and Emerging Poets
Publication Date:
November 2005
Binding:
Paperback
Grade Level:
General/trade
Language:
English
Pages:
86
Dimensions:
9.04x6.12x.30 in. .36 lbs.

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