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This title in other editionsPierce the Skin: Selected Poems, 1982-2007by Henri Cole
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A GENEROUS SELECTION FROM ONE OF OUR GREATEST LIVING POETS Henri Cole has been described as a “fiercely somber, yet exuberant poet” by Harold Bloom, who identifies him as the central poet of his generation. Coles most recent poems have a daring sensitivity and imagistic beauty unlike anything on the American scene today. Whether they are exploring pleasure or pain, humor or sorrow, triumph or fear, they reach for an almost shocking intensity. Coles fourth book, Middle Earth, awakened his audience to him as a poet now writing the poems of his career. Pierce the Skin brings together sixty-six poems from the past twenty-five years, including work from Coles early, closely observed, virtuosic books, long out of print, as well as his important more recent books, The Visible Man (1998), Middle Earth (2003), and Blackbird and Wolf (2007). The result is a collection reconsecrating Coles central themes: the desire for connection, the contingencies of selfhood and human love, the dissolution of the body, the sublime renewal found in nature, and the distance of language from experience. “I dont want words to sever me from reality,” Cole says, striving in Pierce the Skin to break the barrier even between word and skin. Maureen N. McLane wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Cole is a poet of “self-overcoming, lusting, loathing and beautiful force.” This book will have a permanent place with other essential poems of our moment. Henri Cole was born in Fukuoka, Japan, and was raised in Virginia. The recipient of many awards, he is the author, most recently, of Blackbird and Wolf and Middle Earth, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Henri Cole has been described as a “fiercely somber, yet exuberant poet” by Harold Bloom, who identifies him as the central poet of his generation. Coles most recent poems have a daring sensitivity and imagistic beauty unlike anything on the American scene today. Whether they are exploring pleasure or pain, humor or sorrow, triumph or fear, they reach for an almost shocking intensity. Coles fourth book, Middle Earth, awakened his audience to him as a poet now writing the poems of his career. Pierce the Skin brings together sixty-six poems from the past twenty-five years, including work from Coles early, closely observed, virtuosic books, long out of print, as well as his important more recent books, The Visible Man (1998), Middle Earth (2003), and Blackbird and Wolf (2007). The result is a collection reconsecrating Coles central themes: the desire for connection, the contingencies of selfhood and human love, the dissolution of the body, the sublime renewal found in nature, and the distance of language from experience. “I dont want words to sever me from reality,” Cole says, striving in Pierce the Skin to break the barrier even between word and skin. Maureen N. McLane wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Cole is a poet of “self-overcoming, lusting, loathing and beautiful force.” This book will have a permanent place with other essential poems of our moment. "This is not poetry for the faint of heart, or for anyone wishing for a merely inspiring read; it is heartbreaking and purifying as only great poetry can be."—Craig Morgan Teicher, The Cleveland Plain Dealer "Cole has been called a 'major poet' by no less an authority than Harold Bloom, and his work has been consistently lauded throughout his closely watched career. This […] selection from Coles six previous books offers the first bird's-eye view of Cole's body of work, and it will most likely leave readers wanting more. Cole is nothing if not constantly intense on the page—his verse is always melancholy, but also carries a kind of religious weight, as if sadness itself were a ticket out of Hell. Cole is unafraid to embarrass himself ('After the death of my father,' begins one poem, 'I locked// myself in my room, bored and animallike') if it will lead him to his particular brand of skinned clarity, as when, at the end of the same poem, he seeks his father in 'a little room in which glowing cigarettes// came and went, like souls losing magnitude,// but none with the battered hand I knew.' In Cole's poems, the stakes are always impossibly high, and every insight is deeply costly. But perhaps that's the price for being able to say, 'I can feel my heart beating inside my heart.'"—Publishers Weekly (starred review) Praise for Middle Earth "Middle Earth is Henri Cole's epiphany, his Whitmanesque sunrise. The modulation of these poems is extraordinary: they have a continuous undersong. 'It must give pleasure,' [Wallace] Stevens said. So oxymoronic is pleasure-pain, in Henri Cole, that we need to modify Stevens . . . Henri Cole has become a master poet, with few peers . . . a central poet of his generation."—Harold Bloom "These are the poems of a conjurer, ceremonial and hypnotic . . . This collection marks the birth of Cole, a writer in his late forties, as a poet for a wider audience. He displays his sense of humor and takes an unguilty pleasure in his vision."—Dana Goodyear, Los Angeles Times Book Review Praise for Blackbird and Wolf "Cole's private but accessible poems reconnect with the life of the senses . . . Direct and elegant . . . Blackbird and Wolf dazzles."—Kate Peterson, The Chicago Times "Henri Cole's tranquil vistas are dappled with a chiaroscuro of pain . . . In his dogged attempts to embrace nature's apparent grotesqueries, Cole approaches the sublime that Wordsworth defined as a mixture of awe and terror."—Phoebe Pettingell, The New Leader TABLE OF CONTENTS From The Marble Queen (1986) V-Winged and Hoary Heart of the Monarch The Mare The Marble Queen Fathers Jewelry Box From The Zoo Wheel of Knowledge (1989) The Annulment A Half-Life White Shets Ascension on Fire Island The Zoo Wheel of Knowledge From The Look of Things (1995) The Pink and The Black Paper Dolls 40 Days and 40 Nights The Roman Baths at Nîmes You Come When I Call You The Minimum Circus Harvard Classics Une Lettre À New York Tarantula Buddha and The Seven Tiger Cubs Apostasy From The Visible Man (1998) White Spine Adam Dying From Chiffon Morning The Coast Guard Station Horses Black Mane From Apollo From Middle Earth (2003) Self-Portrait in a Gold Kimono Icarus Breathing The Hare Kayaks Radiant Ivory Ape House, Berlin Zoo Black Camellia Landscape with Deer and Figure Green Shade Myself with Cats Pillowcase with Praying Mantis Original Face Mask My Tea Ceremony Self-Portrait as the Red Princess Olympia Snow Moon Flower Blur From Blackbird and Wolf (2007) Sycamores Mimosa Sensitiva Gulls Oil & Steel Twilight To Sleep The Tree Cutters Self-Portrait with Hornets Gravity and Center American Kestrel Homosexuality Poppies Bowl of Lilacs Shaving My Weed Self-Portrait with Red Eyes Beach Walk Dead Wren To The Forty-Third President Dune Acknowledgements Review:"Cole has been called a 'major poet' by no less an authority than Harold Bloom, and his work has been consistently lauded throughout his closely watched career. This slim (perhaps too slim) selection from Cole's six previous books offers the first bird's-eye view of Cole's body of work, and it will most likely leave readers wanting more. Cole is nothing if not constantly intense on the page — his verse is always melancholy, but also carries a kind of religious weight, as if sadness itself were a ticket out of Hell. Cole is unafraid to embarrass himself ('After the death of my father,' begins one poem, 'I locked// myself in my room, bored and animallike') if it will lead him to his particular brand of skinned clarity, as when, at the end of the same poem, he seeks his father in 'a little room in which glowing cigarettes// came and went, like souls losing magnitude,// but none with the battered hand I knew.' In Cole's poems, the stakes are always impossibly high, and every insight is deeply costly. But perhaps that's the price for being able to say, 'I can feel my heart beating inside my heart.'" Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Synopsis:A GENEROUS SELECTION FROM ONE OF OUR GREATEST LIVING POETS Henri Cole has been described as a “fiercely somber, yet exuberant poet” by Harold Bloom, who identifies him as the central poet of his generation. Coles most recent poems have a daring sensitivity and imagistic beauty unlike anything on the American scene today. Whether they are exploring pleasure or pain, humor or sorrow, triumph or fear, they reach for an almost shocking intensity. Coles fourth book, Middle Earth, awakened his audience to him as a poet now writing the poems of his career. Pierce the Skin brings together sixty-six poems from the past twenty-five years, including work from Coles early, closely observed, virtuosic books, long out of print, as well as his important more recent books, The Visible Man (1998), Middle Earth (2003), and Blackbird and Wolf (2007). The result is a collection reconsecrating Coles central themes: the desire for connection, the contingencies of selfhood and human love, the dissolution of the body, the sublime renewal found in nature, and the distance of language from experience. “I dont want words to sever me from reality,” Cole says, striving in Pierce the Skin to break the barrier even between word and skin. Maureen N. McLane wrote in The New York Times Book Review that Cole is a poet of “self-overcoming, lusting, loathing and beautiful force.” This book will have a permanent place with other essential poems of our moment. About the AuthorHENRI COLE was born in Fukuoka, Japan, and was raised in Virginia. The recipient of many awards, he is the author, most recently, of Blackbird and Wolf (FSG, 2007) and Middle Earth (FSG, 2003), which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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