Synopses & Reviews
In The Wages of Goodness Michael Blumenthal explores the costs and the wages of three ruling obsessions in our lives: love, grief, and virtue. Reacting to a tendency in contemporary poetry to avoid such "sentimental" and abstract notions as goodness, Blumenthal succeeds in making ideas live through the particulars of each poem.
Review
"This poet's fifth book is as notable for its moral gravitas as for its lyrical grace. Blumenthal meditates on fatherhood, personal history, love, loss, and gain as intertwined threads of life's mingled yarn. . . . A fine book."--Library Journal
About the Author
Michael Blumenthal is Briggs-Copeland Associate Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Harvard University. He is the author of four previous books of poems, most recently Against Romance.