Synopses & Reviews
Wait finds C. K. Williams by turns ruminative, stalked by the conscience-beast, who harries me,” and riven by idiot vigor, voracious as the youth I was for whom everything was going too slowly, too slowly.” Poems about animals and rural life are set hard by poems about shrapnel in Iraq and sudden desire on the Paris Métro; grateful invocations of Herbert and Hopkins give way to fierce negotiations with the shades of Coleridge, Dostoevsky, and Celan. What the poems share is their setting in the cool, spacious, spotlit, book-lined place that is Williamss consciousness, a place whose workings he has rendered for fifty years with inimitable candor and style.
C.K. Williamss books of poetry include Repair, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and The Singing, winner of the National Book Award. He teaches at Princeton University and lives part of the year in France. A powerful new work from a poet honored with the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, Wait finds C. K. Williams by turns ruminative, stalked by the conscience-beast, who harries me,” and riven by idiot vigor, voracious as the youth I was for whom everything was going too slowly, too slowly.” Poems about animals and rural life are set hard by poems about shrapnel in Iraq and sudden desire on the Paris Métro; grateful invocations of Herbert and Hopkins give way to fierce negotiations with the shades of Coleridge, Dostoevsky, and Celan. What the poems share is their setting in the cool, spacious, spotlit, book-lined place that is Williamss consciousness, a place whose workings he has rendered for fifty years with inimitable candor and style. "In his first new collection since his monumental Collected Poems, Pulitzer-winner and septuagenarian Williams delivers his best book in a decade, and one of his best outright. Like W.S. Merwin's late-career masterpiece, The Shadow of Sirius, this is the kind of book that only a lifetimeof experience and writingcan yield. As the title implies, these poems, which often return to Williams's trademark long lines, find the poet anticipating his end and reflecting on what came before. 'How do you know when you can laugh when somebody dies, your brother dies,' Williams recalls asking a bunch of other boys at a funeral from his childhood. Over and over, Williams tries to compute the math of loss, the bottom line of what death means in life, and finds there is no answer: 'Shouldn't he have told me the contrition cycle would from then be ever upon me,/ it didn't matter that I'd really only wanted to know how grief ends, and when?' the poem continues. Even experience can't provide solutions for the most persistent human problems, these poems attest, as in a meditation on a wasp frantic to escape window glass: 'That invisible barrier between you and the world,/ between you and your truth . . . Stinger blunted/ wings frayed, only the battering, battered brain . . .'"Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Williams poems enter the brain with such force and velocity, you dont so much read as ride them. But for all their propulsion, every element stays in sharp focus: mindscapes of fractal intricacy. Landscapes where birds peck for food, heifers rush a fence, and a girl throws down her bicycle. Williams poems deliver us to strange crossroads, where a thrush feeds a chick with a misshapen head and a young woman pushes an infant with Down syndrome in a stroller. Where a family comes upon a POW camp for Germans in an American city park. Williams evokes beauty and 'filth / and fetor and rot.' He rails against and marvels over time. He poses impossible metaphysical questions, undermines the cherished notion of moral evolution, looks squarely at death, and mocks poetrys pretensions. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, Williams has long been a poet of conscience and outrage, and how galvanizing are these magnificent protests against war and the entire spectrum of injustices. How cutting his laments over the cruel facts of life, how glorious his 'delight in astonishing being.' Exacting and impassioned, Williams adds another electrifying and important collection to his extraordinary canon."Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
"The Pulitzer Prize-winning Williams (Repair) writes two kinds of poems: proselike pieces that have a narrative drive and tight, short-lined lyrics that seem inspired by haiku. Generally focusing on dramatic situations in which a personusually an 'I'muses on his interior life, all of the poems are surprisingly accessible, especially since some of them seem like examinations of conscience. As the poet talks to himself (or to another self 'who's me yet not me') about feelings of guilt and alienation, we listen sometimes avidly. But in other instances, as with a few weaker poems, we must force ourselves to pay attention . . . [Williams] has soul: a perfect ear for the just right ending coupled with an exquisite eye for images that resonate. This book belongs on all poetry lovers' shelves."Diane Scharper, Library Journal
Review
“In his first new collection since his monumental Collected Poems, Pulitzer-winner and septuagenarian Williams delivers his best book in a decade, and one of his best outright. Like W.S. Merwin's late-career masterpiece The Shadow of Sirius, this is the kind of book that only a lifetime—of experience and writing—can yield.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “[Williams] has soul: a perfect ear for the just right ending coupled with an exquisite eye for images that resonate. This book belongs on all poetry lovers' shelves.” —Diane Scharper, Library Journal “Williams poems enter the brain with such force and velocity, you dont so much read as ride them. But for all their propulsion, every element stays in sharp focus: mindscapes of fractal intricacy.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
Synopsis
Wait finds C. K. Williams by turns ruminative, stalked by “the conscience-beast, who harries me,” and “riven by idiot vigor, voracious as the youth I was / for whom everything always was going too slowly, too slowly.” Poems about animals and rural life are set hard by poems about shrapnel in Iraq and sudden desire on the Paris métro; grateful invocations of Herbert and Hopkins give way to fierce negotiations with the shades of Coleridge, Dostoyevsky, and Celan. What the poems share is their setting in the cool, spacious, spotlit, book-lined place that is Williamss consciousness, a place whose workings he has rendered for fifty years with inimitable candor and style.
“Williams manages to consistently maintain the gentle, witty, and honest voice that he has spent a lifetime crafting.” —Rachel A. Burns, The Harvard Crimson
Synopsis
One of Americas most accessible and engaging poets takes readers on a lively and surprising night tour of Americas public places.
Night of the Republicshowcases one of Americas best poets not only working at the height of his powers but pushing into new and exciting territory as well. InNight of the Republic, Alan Shapiro visits a gas station restroom, a shoe store, a convention hall, and a racetrack, among other placesand in stark Edward Hopper–like imagery reveals the surreal and dreamlike quality of these familiar but empty night spaces. Shapiro finds in them not the expected alienation but rather an odd, companionable spirit of a community of solitude rising from the quiet emptiness. The collection also includes moving meditations of his childhood in Brookline, Massachusetts, and of tragic and haunting events such as the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of JFK. WhileNight of the Republicis Shapiros most ambitious, inventive, and accessible collection to date, it is also his most timely and urgent for the acute way it illuminates the mingling of private obsessions with public space.
Synopsis
The tenth collection of poems from Alan Shapiro, author of SONG AND DANCE and OLD WAR
Synopsis
An urgent and timely collection by one of Americas most inventive and accessible poets
In Night of the Republic, Alan Shapiro takes us on an unsettling night tour of Americas public places—a gas station restroom, shoe store, convention hall, and race track among others—and in stark Edward Hopper-like imagery reveals the surreal and dreamlike features of these familiar but empty night spaces. Shapiro finds in them not the expected alienation but rather an odd, companionable solitude rising up from the quiet emptiness.
In other poems, Shapiro writes movingly of his 1950s and 60s childhood in Brookline, Massachusetts, with special focus on the house he grew up in. These meditations, always inflected with Shapiros quick wit and humor, lead to recollections of tragic and haunting events such as the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of JFK. While Night of the Republic is Shapiros most ambitious work to date, it is also his most timely and urgent for the acute way it illuminates the mingling of private obsessions with public space.
About the Author
Alan Shapiro is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the author of nine acclaimed books of poetry. He is a former recipient of the Kingsley Tufts Award and the Los Angeles Book Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He was recently elected as a fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Table of Contents
Contents I. Night of the Republic
Gas Station Restroom 3
Car Dealership at 3 A.M. 5
Supermarket 7
Park Bench 10
Downtown Strip Club 12
Hotel Lobby 14
Race Track 15
Dry Cleaner 17
Shoe Store 18
Stone Church 20
Playground 23
Gym 25
Indoor Municipal Pool 26
Hospital Examination Room 27
Senior Center 28
Funeral Home 31
II. Galaxy Formation
Triumph 33
Forgiveness 34
Conductor 36
Edenic Simile 37
Close to You 39
Galaxy Formation 41
III. Night of the Republic
Amphitheater 43
Museum 44
Bookstore 45
Barbershop 48
Post Office 50
Convention Hall 51
Government Center 52
Courtroom 53
The Public 55
IV. At the Corner of
Coolidge and Clarence
Beloved 73
Flowerpot 74
The Family 75
Light Switch 76
Sickbed 77
Coffee Cup 78
Cigarette Smoke 79
Piano Bench 80
Dryer 81
Bathtub 82
Family Pictures 83
Color 84
Faucet 85
Bedroom Door 86
Solitaire 87
Cellar 88
White Gloves 89
Shed 90
Hallway 91
The Doorbell 92
Notes 95