Synopses & Reviews
Divided into four acts, this innovative book-length poem assesses culture at large and exposes the constellating force of historical, biblical, and social influences on the human community. Sharp and intelligent, this tour de force incorporates dialogues, reports, Biblical references, interviews, famous speeches, and infamous cultural and historical events. Dramatizing various socio-religious-political ecosystems, the poem studies the echoes of those systems on the psyches and thoughts of the universal human community. Showing humanity in all its darkness and brilliance, the hybrid poem will appeal to those interested in poetry and cultural studies.
Synopsis
Present Tense is a tour de force, a book-length poetic project that is anatomy, history, testimony, eulogy, and divining rod of our constantly evolving present. In four acts, Rabinowitz dramatizes not only our various socio-religious-political ecosystems but also the myriad echoes of those systems that resound in our psyches and permeate our thoughts. Through dialogue, reportage, Biblical reference, interview, famous speech, infamous cultural and historical events and more, Rabinowitz offers readers an arresting account of who and what we are as humans--in all of our darkness and our brilliance. This poetry--with its invigorating breadth and shocking immediacy--compels its readers' full engagement with the page, an interaction that incites us to examine our own position and potential in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of the actual, as we experience it moment by moment.
About the Author
Anna Rabinowitz is an award-winning writer of three collections of poetry: At the Site of Inside Out, Darkling, and The Wanton Sublime: A Florilegium of Whethers and Wonders. Her work has been published in numerous journals, including Atlantic Monthly, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Paris Review, Southwest Review, Sulfur, and Verse and in the anthologies The Best American Poetry, The KGB Bar Reader, Life on the Line, Poetry After 9/11, Poetry Daily, and The Poets Grimm. She lives in New York City.