Synopses & Reviews
From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Ruth Lilly Prize The poems in Carl Denniss new collection Another Reason assume that our efforts to reason with ourselves and with others about what matters to us are necessary to escape the purely private point of view, to provide the houses we live in with doors and windows. These poems enact a drama of attempted persuasion, as the poet confers with himself, with intimates, and with strangers, if only in the hope that by defining differences more precisely one may be drawn into a genuine dialogue. As the poet asserts and questions his own authority, encountering a wide range of competing claims from other voices, we find ourselves included in a conversation that deepens our notion of the human community.
Review
"At his best...Dennis writes polished, accessible poetry that addresses the middle range of life with sensitivity and skill." David Orr, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
A career-spanning collection of poems from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carl Dennis. The New York Times has called Carl Dennis's poetry "wise, original, and deeply moving." A poet with a growing audience of admirers, Dennis writes in a clear, classically simple language that is both personal and universal. Making use of a rich variety of genres advice, meditation, elegy, and prophecy his poems take unexpected turns as they explore their subjects, catching the reader off balance in a way that is liberating. This new anthology gathers the best of his eight previous books along with a generous sampling of new poems.
Synopsis
The New York Times has called Carl Dennis’s poetry “wise, original, and deeply moving.” A poet with a growing audience of admirers, Dennis writes in a clear, classically simple language that is both personal and universal. Making use of a rich variety of genres—advice, meditation, elegy, and prophecy—his poems take unexpected turns as they explore their subjects, catching the reader off balance in a way that is liberating. This new anthology gathers the best of his eight previous books along with a generous sampling of new poems.
About the Author
Carl Dennis is the author of nine books of poetry, including Practical Gods, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, in 2000 he was awarded the Ruth Lilly Prize from Poetry Magazine and the Modern Poetry Association for his contribution to American poetry. He teaches in the English Department at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and is a sometime member of the faculty of the MFA program in creative writing at Warren Wilson College.
Table of Contents
Carl Dennis: New and Selected Poems
New Poems Gravestones
Heroic
Socrates and I
Manners
Verona
A Colleague Confesses
In Paris
Delphinium
In the Coffee Shop
Window Boxes
The Next Life
Our Death
From a Practical Reader
The Master of Metaphor
Sensible Summers
Manifesto
World History
The Actor
Dream Theory
Candles
from A House of My Own (1974)
Useful Advice
Students
Relatives
Knots
from Climbing Down (1976)
Ingratitude
The Homeowner
The Peaceable Kingdom
Praise for My Heart
Native Son
from Signs and Wonders (1979)
Listeners
Near Idaville
Carpentry
Snow
The Tree
Sunday
Grandmother and I
A Plea for More Time
The Band
from The Near World (1985)
Hector's Return
At the Corner
The Midlands
Beauty Exposed
Captain Cook
At Home with Cézanne
More Music
What Has Become of Them
Later
Charity
Time Heals All Wounds
from The Outskirts of Troy (1988)
Heinrich Schliemann
The Promised Land
Henry James and Hester Street
Visiting a Friend Near Sagamon Hill
Twenty Years
Little League
Fear of the Dark
On the Soul
At Becky's Piano Recital
The Circus
On the Way to School
from Meetings with Time (1992)
The Photograph
Defining Time
My Guardians
Tuesday at First Presbyterian
The Window in Spring
Haven
Adventure
The Bill of Rights
The Invalid
The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
Unfinished Symphony
Mildew
Night Walk
Infidel
My Moses
Delaware Park, 1990
Spring Letter
Invitation
No Shame
from Ranking the Wishes (1997)
Loss
Pendulum
Days of Heaven
To Reason
Cedar Point
The Great Day
Seven Days
Sarit Narai
Aunt Celia, 1961
All I've Wanted
Integer
Distinctions
Two or Three Wishes
Grace
Bivouac Near Trenton
Consolation
Writing at Night
As If
Starry Night
Still Life
Your City
from Practical Gods (2001)
A Priest of Hermes
Saint Francis and the Nun
Department Store
Not the Idle
Gelati
To a Pagan
History
School Days
Prophet
Pride
On the Bus to Utica
Jesus Freaks
The Serpent to Adam
View of Delft
A Chance for the Soul
Audience
A Letter from Mary in the Tyrol
Numbers
The Fallen
Eurydice
The Lace Maker
Progressive Health
More Art
Bashð
Improbable Story
Bishop Berkeley
Sunrise
Eternal Poetry
In the Short Term
Guardian Angel
May Jen
Eternal Life
The God Who Loves You