Synopses & Reviews
"Building slowly from pieces scattered, even shattered, but still unnervingly present, Greenfield's story speaks for many, yet he presents it uniquely, revealing language as a mode of perception that can rearrange the pastbut only if it's quick enough. Greenfield's language is that quickand sharp, and startlingly beautiful."Cole Swensen, author of
Such Rich Hour"Like a blue-faced television in a darkened room, a backstory lights up this rhapsodic outpouring. This is a cunning attack on both the ever-fading memory and on conventional methods of poetic confession 'The trigger is set on annihilation.' I'm truly amazed by these poems."Mary Jo Bang, author of Louise in Love
"Greenfield tells us to 'Recognize the world,' know it again, since the only knowledge that counts is re-cognition. He presents those second knowings, recapitulations, bright flashing revisitings of pain and pleasure, which enact a kind of fumbling seduction between us and the world. In this book we recognize our best possibilities, and our worst fears, but it is all brilliant. This book is brilliance."Bin Ramke, author of Airs, Waters, Places
Review
"Building slowly from pieces scattered, even shattered, but still unnervingly present, Greenfield's story speaks for many, yet he presents it uniquely, revealing language as a mode of perception that can rearrange the past-but only if it's quick enough. Greenfield's language is that quick-and sharp, and startlingly beautiful." Cole Swensen, author of Such Rich Hour
Review
"Like a blue-faced television in a darkened room, a backstory lights up this rhapsodic outpouring. This is a cunning attack on both the ever-fading memory and on conventional methods of poetic confession -'The trigger is set on annihilation.' I'm truly amazed by these poems." Mary Jo Bang, author of Louise in Love
Review
"Greenfield tells us to 'Recognize the world,' know it again, since the only knowledge that counts is re-cognition. He presents those second knowings, recapitulations, bright flashing revisitings of pain and pleasure, which enact a kind of fumbling seduction between us and the world. In this book we recognize our best possibilities, and our worst fears, but it is all brilliant. This book is brilliance." Bin Ramke, author of Airs, Waters, Places
Synopsis
"Surely, all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end," said Rilke. A Carnage in the Lovetrees begins at the moment the speaker reaches this realization. He then resolves to rebuild a world caught in the crosshairs of repeated annihilation, regrounding love as the only viable stratagem for survival. Richard Greenfield's sequence of poems represents a struggle to reconcile the historical with the present and to find a language that allows the speaker to endure past calamities.
Synopsis
Surely, all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, said Rilke. A Carnage in the Lovetrees begins at the moment the speaker reaches this realization. He resolves then to rebuild a world caught in the crosshairs of repeated annihilation, regrounding love as the only viable stratagem for survival. Richard Greenfield's sequence of poems searches for a way to live in the aftermath of private trauma and public disaster. It represents a struggle to reconcile the historical with the present and to find a language that allows the speaker to endure past calamities. These relentless, acrobatic, and self-aware poems resist settling for easy solutions, or even closure, but instead push toward the difficult compromise of the livable.
About the Author
Richard Greenfield is a doctoral candidate in English and Creative Writing at the University of Denver. A graduate of the University of Montana's creative writing program, his work has appeared in Boston Review, Fourteen Hills, syllogism, and VOLT