Synopses & Reviews
Rarely has a first book of poems been more exalted than Gabrielle Calvocoressi's , which the called "an excoriation of present-day America by a new and lethal commentator." Now, in this extraordinary follow-up, Calvocoressi continues her mission to document the particular hardships of derelict American small towns. These, though, are different poems, their lens cracked and turned on a narrator seeking her own deliverance from abandonment and violence. Battered but never beaten, this narrator finds salvation in ecstatic communion with the gods of jazz and especially boxing: "O Tommy Hearns, O blood come down," she prays. "Find your way to Hungerford where my/father glowers over me. Show him/how the bag does penance." In such prayers she finds the strength to survive the home she has to leave and, once she does, the strength to face the fires she finds flaring the country over, from Los Angeles to Laramie. is a work of unbelievable force, a devastating and glorious testimony about America--its lore, disappointments, and promise.
Review
"Muscular and musical . . . combines boxing, Elvis, church burnings, sex and horses to produce a book that is pure Americana." Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
If Friday Night Lightswas a book of poems, this would be that book. Without sacrificing one iota of poetic imagination or brilliance, Gaby Calvocoressi writes unbelievably potent poetry that everyday people connect with, poetry about real lives set in the real world. The small-town settings she writes of aren"t happy'"there"s brutality and bigotry'"but the poems have a beauty and spiritedness that makes them feel incredibly heroic. The book contains unforgettable poems about jazz and boxing, two things to which its speaker turns to find solace and confidence. Reminiscent of work by Philip Levine and Mary Karr, it is a book about America, in all of its struggling and defiantly hopeful glory.
Synopsis
These, though, are different poems, their lens cracked and turned on a narrator seeking her own deliverance from abandonment and violence. Battered but never beaten, this narrator finds salvation in ecstatic communion with the gods of jazz and especially boxing: O Tommy Hearns, O blood come down, she prays. Find your way to Hungerford where my/father glowers over me. Show him/how the bag does penance. In such prayers she finds the strength to survive the home she has to leave and, once she does, the strength to face the fires she finds flaring the country over, from Los Angeles to Laramie.Apocalyptic Swing is a work of unbelievable force, a devastating and glorious testimony about America its lore, disappointments, and promise. "
Synopsis
Rarely has a first book of poems been more exalted than Gabrielle Calvocoressi's The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, which the Times Literary Supplement called "an excoriation of present-day America by a new and lethal commentator." Now, in this extraordinary follow-up, Calvocoressi continues her mission to document the particular hardships of derelict American small towns.
These, though, are different poems, their lens cracked and turned on a narrator seeking her own deliverance from abandonment and violence. Battered but never beaten, this narrator finds salvation in ecstatic communion with the gods of jazz and especially boxing: "O Tommy Hearns, O blood come down," she prays. "Find your way to Hungerford where my/father glowers over me. Show him/how the bag does penance." In such prayers she finds the strength to survive the home she has to leave and, once she does, the strength to face the fires she finds flaring the country over, from Los Angeles to Laramie. Apocalyptic Swing is a work of unbelievable force, a devastating and glorious testimony about America--its lore, disappointments, and promise.
Synopsis
Finalist for the 2009 Book Prize in Poetry.
About the Author
Gabrielle Calvocoressilives in Los Angeles, having grown up in central Connecticut and lived in New York City (while getting her MFA from Columbia University) and San Francisco (while a Stegner Fellow and then a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University). She teaches in the graduate creative writing programs of California College of the Arts and Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina.