Synopses & Reviews
Philip Schultz, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, has been celebrated for his singular vision of the American immigrant experience and Jewish identity, his alternately fierce and tender portrayal of family life, and his rich and riotous evocation of city streets. His poems have found enthusiastic audiences among readers of Garrison Keillors Writers Almanac, Slate, The New Yorker, and other publications. His willingness to face down the demons of failure and loss, in his previous book particularly, make him a poet for our times, a poet who can write “If I have to believe in something / I believe in despair.” Yet he remains oddly undaunted: “sometimes, late at night / we, my happiness and I, reminisce / lifelong antagonists / enjoying each others company.”
The God of Loneliness, a major collection of Schultzs work, includes poems from his five books (Like Wings, Deep Within the Ravine, The Holy Worm of Praise, Living in the Past, Failure) and fourteen new poems. It is a volume to cherish, from “one of the least affected of American poets, and one of the fiercest” (Tony Hoagland), and it will be an essential addition to the history of American poetry.
Review
"For the reader boiling in triple-digit SoCal heat at the end of the summer, Donald Hall's "The Back Chamber: Poems" arrives like a sudden cloudburst and shower of cooling rain. . .A former U.S. poet laureate, Hall has always had this elemental power — to vividly evoke his particular New England climate and geography so that it can't be mistaken for any other — but what is more unexpected in this new collection of poems, his 16th, is passion."--LA Times "If the poems in it are relatively somber, theyre equally witty, consummately well-crafted." --Booklist, STARRED review "Featuring moving, amusing, musical poems about love, aging, and baseball, this work will have broad appeal and is recommended for all collections."—Library Journal "The former U.S. poet laureate reaches his 20th book in unmistakably honest form..." --Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
The first full-length volume of poems in a decade by the former poet laureate of the United States
In The Back Chamber, Donald Hall illuminates the evocative, iconic objects of deep memory—a cowbell, a white stone perfectly round, a three-legged milking stool—that serve to foreground the rich meditations on time and mortality that run through his remarkable new collection. While Halls devoted readers will recognize many of his long-standing preoccupations—baseball, the family farm, love, sex, and friendship—what will strike them as new is the fierce, pitiless poignancy he reveals as his own lifes end comes into view. The Back Chamber is far from being death-haunted, but rather is lively, irreverent, erotic, hilarious, ironic, and sly—full of the life-affirming energy that has made Donald Hall one of Americas most popular and enduring poets.
Synopsis
New and selected poems from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Schultz.
Synopsis
The first, full-length volume of poems in a decade by former poet laureate of the United States Donald Hall
About the Author
DONALD HALL, poet laureate of the United States from 2006 to 2007, has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in poetry, the Lenore Marshall Award, the 1990 Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Table of Contents
i. MeatloafThe Things 3
Loves Progress 4
Showtunes 5
Ruins 6
Conclusion at Union Lake 7
Three Women 9
Nymph and Shepherd 11
Bangers and Mash 12
River 13
Meatloaf 15
The Week 20
Convergences 21
Advent 22
Apples Peaches 23
After the Prom 25
Creative Writing 26
The Pursuit of Poetry 27
ii. Rics Progress
Rics Progress 31
iii. Rocking Chairs Painted Green
The Number 53
Scar Tissue 55
Sleep 56
Closing 57
What We Did 62
Searching 63
The Gardener 64
The Offspring 65
Freezes and Junes 66
The Widowers Cowbell 67
Blue Snow 68
Goosefeathers 69
The Back Chamber 70
Maples 71
The Bone Ring 73
Alterations 74
Pieces 75
Envy 76
“Poetry and Ambition” 77
Green Farmhouse Chairs 78