Synopses & Reviews
Those aren't stars, darling
That's your nervous system
Nanna didn't take you to planetariums like this
--from "Hyper-Berceuse: 3 A.M."
August Kleinzahler's new poems stretch and go places he has never gone before: they have his signature high color and rhythmic jump, but they take on a breadth of voice and achieve registers that his earlier work only hinted at. Ranging from Vegas and Mayfair to the Asian steppes and contemporary Berlin, these poems touch down at will in tableaux where Liberace unceremoniously meets with St. Kevin and Attila with Zsa Zsa Gabor. Surprise after surprise, nothing seems to lie outside Kleinzahler's purview.
This is the strongest collection to date from a poet with "the vision and confident skill to make American poetry new" (Clive Wilmer, The Times [London]).
Review
Praise for
The Strange Hours Travelers Keep:"A wonder wall of impossibly strange headlines, found poetry . . . A menacing, nasty iambic fest which must be heard a viva voce, in the poet's broad New Jersey vowels and clipped diction . . . Thank the muses [for] August Kleinzahler." --Peter Spagnuolo, The Brooklyn Rail
Synopsis
August Kleinzahler's new poems stretch and go places he has never gone before: They have his signature high color and rhythmic jump, but they take on a breadth of voice and achieve registers that his earlier work only hinted at. Ranging from Las Vegas and Mayfair to contemporary Berlin, these poems touch down at will in tableaux where Liberace unceremoniously meets with St. Kevin and Gustav Mahler with Ava Gardner. This is the strongest collection to date from a poet "equally at home anywhere between the jets and the steppes" (Alexsandar Hemon,
Poetry).
About the Author
August Kleinzahler is the author of ten books of poems, including
Green Sees Things in Waves and
Live from the Hong Kong Nile Club. He lives in San Francisco.