|
$8.00 List price:
Used Trade Paper
Ships in 1 to 3 days
 available for shipping or prepaid pickup only
Available for In-store Pickup
in 7 to 12 days
More copies of this ISBNNight of a Thousand Blossoms (04 Edition)by Gaspar
Synopses & ReviewsPlease note that used books may not include additional media (study guides, CDs, DVDs, solutions manuals, etc.) as described in the publisher comments.
Publisher Comments:In these poems, the poet restlessly inhabits the night, finding it terrifying and beautiful, searching for meaning in the yard, the neighborhood, the heavens and every wise book he owns. These urban pastoral meditations employ ritual and repetition to create a kind of mantra, seeking surrender to that state of meditation leading to enlightenment-yet arguing with the idea of surrendering any attachments at all to this world we've been given to learn and love: a city garden cohabitated by ancient Romans and tattooed kids, automobiles and hollyhock, maurauding cats and the Buddha. "I should be satisfied with the household gods,"he mourns, but is satisfied with nothing, determined to fit the whole world into his poems lest the one essential thing slip by. From "The One God is Mysterious" The king and his queen are feasting. . They recline, sumptuously, on long divans. and are attended by naked servants. They. can have anything they want, this much is. clear, and I believe they have been having. sex with one another and with the servants. Why wouldn't they? Who among the servants. . would not be honored to help? And it's Babylon. after all, and doesn't Babylon exist in your. memory? Isn't Babylon the clear rumbling. of your heart at ease with its every craving-. not the way it is now, fenced off with spiked wire. and old pipes, with signs telling the pedestrians. to beware: the litter, the old cans rusting. No, . this is my own memory of excess and extravagance, . of abandonment to the weight of everything. that pulls me down to ruin, those same ticks. and voices that lift me up and fill me with breath. "Frank Gaspar's poems are agile and forceful, their narratives clear and absorbing. In them, he is speaking to the reader-but also to himself, or perhaps to some hazy divinity or to the blue sky. I felt in his voice no attempt to persuade me of anything. I felt only the abiding imperative to get it right. Which is, of course, what real writing is all about."-Mary Oliver Synopsis:In his fourth collection, Gaspar's unique narrative idiom--lush, songful, insistent--firmly establishes him as a distinct, important voice.
Synopsis:Poetry. These urban pastoral mediatations are at once engaged in the search for transcendance, and pointedly unwilling to surrender any of their attachments to the earth. Meaning seeps in between visions of a sumptuous Babylon and the "spiked wire/and old pipes" of the city garden-- between the dream of the gorgeous Roman ruins, and "the weight of everything that pulls me down to ruin." Determined to fit the whole world into his poems lest the one essential thing slip by, Gasper surrenders only to the "abiding imperative to get it right. Which is, of course, what real writing is all about"--Mary Oliver. About the AuthorFrank X. Gaspar is the author of three previous prize-winning collections of poetry, The Holyoke, Mass for the Grace of a Happy Death, and A Field Guide to the Heavens (winner of the Brittingham Prize for Poetry), and a novel, Leaving Pico, which won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and the California Book Award for First Fiction. His work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry 1996 and 2000, among others. His many honors and awards include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Pushcart Prize, the Edgar Stanley Award and a Readers'Choice Award (both from Prairie Schooner). Born in Provincetown, MA, he now lives in southern California where he teaches at Long Beach City College. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
Other books you might like
Related Aisles
|
|||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
|
Follow us on...
|
||||||||||
Don't Miss
