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We Dont Know We Dont Know Poems

by Nick Lantz
We Dont Know We Dont Know Poems

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  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9781555975524
ISBN10: 1555975526
Condition: Standard


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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

Winner of the 2008 Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize for Poetry, Nick Lantz's poems introduce a startling new voice. Taking its title from a dodging statement from former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, We Dont Know We Dont Know assesses what it means to claim new knowledge within a culture that professes to know everything already. The result is a poetry that upends the deeply and dangerously assumed concepts of such a culture—that new knowledge is always better knowledge, that history is a steady progress, that humans are in control of the natural order. Nick Lantzs poems hurtle through time from ancient theories of physics to the CIA training manual for the practice of torture, from the history of the question mark to the would-be masterpieces left incomplete by the deaths of Leonardo da Vinci, Nikolai Gogol, Bruce Lee, and Jimi Hendrix. Selected by Linda Gregerson for the esteemed Bakeless Prize for Poetry, We Dont Know We Dont Nick Lantz is the winner of the 2009 Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize for poetry, selected by Linda Gregerson and awarded by the Middlebury College Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. He is the author of a second collection, The Lightening That Strikes the Neighbor's House, which won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Nick Lantz, who won the the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bakeless Prize for this collection, has borrowed this title from Donald Rumsfeld's justification of the war in Iraq, one of the lowest points in American public discourse. Lantz's powerful book of political satire addresses the brutal limits of sympathy and imagination and assesses what it means to claim new knowledge within a culture that professes to know everything already. The result is poetry that upends the deeply and dangerously assumed concepts of such a culture—that new knowledge is always better knowledge, that history is a steady progress, that humans are in control of the natural order. Nick Lantz's poems hurtle through time from ancient theories of physics to the CIA training manual for the practice of torture, from the history of the question mark to the would-be masterpieces left incomplete by the deaths of Leonardo da Vinci, Nikolai Gogol, Bruce Lee, and Jimi Hendrix. "Exotic facts, 'Ancient Theories' (one poems title), memorable quotations and familial griefs collide and mingle throughout this striking first collection from the Wisconsin poet Lantz. Lantz takes his title, and many epigraphs, from Donald Rumsfeld ('there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we dont know we dont know'), but few of the poems pursue political causes. Instead, Lantz seems driven by quirky and quotable phrases, those he finds and those he creates—'As you know, the human head is the most/ commonly stolen body part'; 'The whip/ makes a pleasing/ sound when it strikes.' Lantzs best poems have traditional strengths and narrative surprises: 'Thinking Makes It So' records a shockingly callous act, and 'Of the Parrat and other that can speake' (another title from Pliny) reacts to the death of a parent, first with controlled humor, then with grief, and finally with sharpened irony—in a just world, anthologies would snap it up."—Publishers Weekly

Review

                                                On the moon, astronaut David Scott drops a hammer and a falcon feather,                 and we learn nothing                                      we didnt already know.                                                               —from “Ancient Theories”

Synopsis

Winner of the 2008 Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize for Poetry, Nick Lantz's poems introduce a startling new voice. Taking its title from a dodging statement from former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, We Dont Know We Dont Know assesses what it means to claim new knowledge within a culture that professes to know everything already. The result is a poetry that upends the deeply and dangerously assumed concepts of such a culture—that new knowledge is always better knowledge, that history is a steady progress, that humans are in control of the natural order. Nick Lantzs poems hurtle through time from ancient theories of physics to the CIA training manual for the practice of torture, from the history of the question mark to the would-be masterpieces left incomplete by the deaths of Leonardo da Vinci, Nikolai Gogol, Bruce Lee, and Jimi Hendrix. Selected by Linda Gregerson for the esteemed Bakeless Prize for Poetry, We Dont Know We Dont

Synopsis

Winner of the 2008 Katharine Bakeless Nason Prize for Poetry, Nick Lantz's poems introduce a startling new voice.

Taking its title from a dodging statement from former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, We Don't Know We Don't Know assesses what it means to claim new knowledge within a culture that professes to know everything already. The result is a poetry that upends the deeply and dangerously assumed concepts of such a culture--that new knowledge is always better knowledge, that history is a steady progress, that humans are in control of the natural order. Nick Lantz's poems hurtle through time from ancient theories of physics to the CIA training manual for the practice of torture, from the history of the question mark to the would-be masterpieces left incomplete by the deaths of Leonardo da Vinci, Nikolai Gogol, Bruce Lee, and Jimi Hendrix. Selected by Linda Gregerson for the esteemed Bakeless Prize for Poetry, We Don't Know We Don't


About the Author

Nick Lantz is the author of a second collection, The Lightning That Strikes the Neighbors House, which won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

4.5 2

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Average customer rating 4.5 (2 comments)

`
radfemme , October 16, 2010 (view all comments by radfemme)
This book found me by chance at the library and I highly recommend it to anyone who values powerful poetry. I started to make a list of my "favorites" and found it included almost the entire collection which is not something I can say about most poetry books that I come across. He has cleverly illuminated Donald Rumsfeld's unique brand of communication by using his quotes (and Pliny the Elder's) to head book sections and some poems, but manages to make the poems speak with their own quiet force. Listening carefully is all that's required! I look forward to getting my hands, eyes, and ears on his second collection.

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iberichieg , October 11, 2010 (view all comments by iberichieg)
He's good. The poems are short and hit the mark. They take your head out of the black and white world and make you think in images and subtle turns of thought.

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Product Details

ISBN:
9781555975524
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
03/02/2010
Publisher:
MACMILLAN PUBLISHING SERVICES
Pages:
76
Height:
.30IN
Width:
6.12IN
Thickness:
.305 in.
Number of Units:
1
Copyright Year:
2010
Author:
Nick Lantz
Subject:
Single Author / American
Subject:
Poetry-A to Z
Subject:
American poetry - 21st century

Ships free on qualified orders.
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$8.50
List Price:$15.00
Used Trade Paperback
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1Cedar Hills

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