2001, ISBN: 9780374527723

New York Usa: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New 2001. Softcover. Marfree, acidfree fresh prtg; no names, not marked-in, underscored, clearance or discard. Mails from NYC usually within 12 h… Plus…

New York Usa: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New 2001. Softcover. Marfree, acidfree fresh prtg; no names, not marked-in, underscored, clearance or discard. Mails from NYC usually within 12 hours. ; 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.2 inches; 52 pages; \nFrom Publishers Weekly Despite the Springsteen-esque title, the same phrasal gifts that drive 1996's new and collected volume, The Figured Wheel, and Pinsky's acclaimed translation of the Inferno, are well-displayed in this slim, sixth collection. Unfortunately, most of the poems' occasions and insights don't quite measure up to the rhetorical firepower turned upon them. The hortatory mode dominates the collection: "To the Phoenix" begins, "Dark herald, self-conceived in the desert waste, / What yang or yin enfolds your enigma best?" Invoking Prufrock, the body as "Vessel" is implored "O veteran immersed from toe to crown, // Buoy the population of the soul/ Toward their destination before they drown. " "A Phonebook Cover Hermes of the Nineteen-forties" features "Fire zigzag in his grasp, labeled 'Spirit/ Of Communication'--unhistorical, / Pure, the merciless messenger. " There is pleasure in the sheer muscle of these constructions, and it's clear that the poet's archaisms are within his control. Yet the name-checks--of Oprah, Ecco press editor Daniel Halpern and others--grow tiresome, and the stabs at intimacy are tinged with a neo-Lowellian obsession with guilt and grandeur. One can't help reading pretentious references to Pinsky's duties as U. S. Poet laurate into an "Autumn Quartet" (written "On my birthday") , which calls on "the heros of antiquity /To pass their lonely double knowledge on/ To such as Odysseus, who learned to tell the story/ Of his life, couched in as many lies as needed. / Among the epic bravos, a civic man. " The prose centerpiece, "An Alphabet of My Dead, " brings in family, a student suicide, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's Oxford Book of English Verse and "Plural dead in categories like counting sheep, the exterminated Jews of Europe, the obliviated Kallikaks of New Jersey " among others. "To Television, " "The Green Piano" and other lighter pieces will delight fans, but the poems with more profound aspirations lack a penetrating introspection. Copyright 2000 Reed. From Library Jour: Pinsky has several careers within the realm of literature: poet, translator, and public advocate of poetry. All of these influences can be felt in his new collection, which is the first assembly of his own lyric verse to appear since The Want Bone (The Figured Wheel served as a Collected Earlier Poems) . At times, his poems reach for the extra-personal, the mythic or abstract, as in "The Knight's Prayer" or "To the Phoenix"; at others, they move through personal or confessional modes, as in "An Alphabet of My Dead" or "To Television. " Pinsky seems most comfortable with the gnomic or elevated phrase: "The shifting hero wanders alien places, / Through customs of cities and histories of races, / Recollects, travels and summons together all--/ All manners of the dead and living, in the great Hall. " Occasionally, his differing manners collide strangely, but Pinsky delivers, as ever, intelligent, pensive poetry of great beauty. For most collections. -Graham Christian, formerly with Andover-Harvard Theological Lib. , Cambridge, MA Copyright 2000 Reed. ., Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001, 6<

ISBN: 9780374527723

Cathartic, refreshing new work by the American favoriteTiptoe on the globe. Gazingnowhere in particular, the slenderThunderer surrounded by thunder, Fire zigzag in his grasp, labeled ""Sp… Plus…

Cathartic, refreshing new work by the American favoriteTiptoe on the globe. Gazingnowhere in particular, the slenderThunderer surrounded by thunder, Fire zigzag in his grasp, labeled ""SpiritOf Communication""-unhistorical, Pure, the merciless messenger.-from ""A Phonebook Cover Hermes of the Nineteen-forties""Innovative, engaging poems from a leading American poet. Stone wheel that sharpens the blade that mows the grain, Wheel of the sunflower turning, wheel that turnsThe spiral press that squeezes the oil expressedFrom shale or olives. Particles that turn mudOn the potter''s wheel that spins to form the vesselThat holds the oil that drips to cool the blade.-from ""Biography""Jersey Rain takes up a central American subject: the emotional power of inventions, devices, and homemade imaginings - from the alphabet and the lyre through the steel drum and piano to the record player, digital computer, and television. Formally innovative and highly readable poems like ""ABC,"" ""Ode to Meaning,"" ""To Television,"" and ""The Green Piano"" meditate a life guided by the quick, artful tinkerer-god Hermes: deity of music and deception, escort of the dead, inventor of instruments, brilliant messenger, and trickster of heaven. Tiptoe on the globe. Gazingnowhere in particular, the slenderThunderer surrounded by thunder, Fire zigzag in his grasp, labeled ""SpiritOf Communication""-unhistorical, Pure, the merciless messenger.-from ""A Phonebook Cover Hermes of the Nineteen-forties""Jersey Rain - at once complex and aboveboard - marks a new, strong, lyrical stage of Robert Pinsky''s work. Assembled here are poems - some of the finest of his career - that together compose a sweeping and embattled meditation on the themes of a life guided by Hermes: deity of music and deception, escort of the dead, inventor of instruments, brilliant messenger and trickster of heaven. | Jersey Rain by Robert Pinsky Paperback | Indigo Chapters Books > Poetry P10106, Robert Pinsky<

ISBN: 9780374527723

Paperback, [PU: Farrar Strauss & Giroux-3pl], Cathartic, refreshing new work by the American favorite Tiptoe on the globe. Gazing nowhere in particular, the slender Thunderer surrounded … Plus…

Paperback, [PU: Farrar Strauss & Giroux-3pl], Cathartic, refreshing new work by the American favorite Tiptoe on the globe. Gazing nowhere in particular, the slender Thunderer surrounded by thunder, Fire zigzag in his grasp, labeled "Spirit Of Communication"---unhistorical, Pure, the merciless messenger. --from "A Phonebook Cover Hermes of the Nineteen-forties" Innovative, engaging poems from a leading American poet. Stone wheel that sharpens the blade that mows the grain, Wheel of the sunflower turning, wheel that turnsThe spiral press that squeezes the oil expressedFrom shale or olives. Particles that turn mudOn the potter's wheel that spins to form the vesselThat holds the oil that drips to cool the blade.--from "Biography"Jersey Rain takes up a central American subject: the emotional power of inventions, devices, and homemade imaginings -- from the alphabet and the lyre through the steel drum and piano to the record player, digital computer, and television. Formally innovative and highly readable poems like "ABC," "Ode to Meaning," "To Television," and "The Green Piano" meditate a life guided by the quick, artful tinkerer-god Hermes: deity of music and deception, escort of the dead, inventor of instruments, brilliant messenger, and trickster of heaven. Tiptoe on the globe. Gazing nowhere in particular, the slender Thunderer surrounded by thunder, Fire zigzag in his grasp, labeled "Spirit Of Communication"---unhistorical, Pure, the merciless messenger. --from "A Phonebook Cover Hermes of the Nineteen-forties" Jersey Rain -- at once complex and aboveboard -- marks a new, strong, lyrical stage of Robert Pinsky's work. Assembled here are poems -- some of the finest of his career -- that together compose a sweeping and embattled meditation on the themes of a life guided by Hermes: deity of music and deception, escort of the dead, inventor of instruments, brilliant messenger and trickster of heaven., Poetry By Individual Poets<

ISBN: 9780374527723

Cathartic, refreshing new work by the American favoriteTiptoe on the globe. Gazingnowhere in particular, the slenderThunderer surrounded by thunder,Fire zigzag in his grasp, labeled "Spir… Plus…

Cathartic, refreshing new work by the American favoriteTiptoe on the globe. Gazingnowhere in particular, the slenderThunderer surrounded by thunder,Fire zigzag in his grasp, labeled "SpiritOf Communication"---unhistorical,Pure, the merciless messenger.--from "A Phonebook Cover Hermes of the Nineteen-forties"Innovative, engaging poems from a leading American poet.Stone wheel that sharpens the blade that mows the grain,Wheel of the sunflower turning, wheel that turnsThe spiral press that squeezes the oil expressedFrom shale or olives. Particles that turn mudOn the potter''s wheel that spins to form the vesselThat holds the oil that drips to cool the blade.--from "Biography"Jersey Rain takes up a central American subject: the emotional power of inventions, devices, and homemade imaginings -- from the alphabet and the lyre through the steel drum and piano to the record player, digital computer, and television. Formally innovative and highly readable poems like "ABC," "Ode to Meaning," "To Television," and "The Green Piano" meditate a life guided by the quick, artful tinkerer-god Hermes: deity of music and deception, escort of the dead, inventor of instruments, brilliant messenger, and trickster of heaven.Tiptoe on the globe. Gazingnowhere in particular, the slenderThunderer surrounded by thunder,Fire zigzag in his grasp, labeled "SpiritOf Communication"---unhistorical,Pure, the merciless messenger.--from "A Phonebook Cover Hermes of the Nineteen-forties"Jersey Rain -- at once complex and aboveboard -- marks a new, strong, lyrical stage of Robert Pinsky''s work. Assembled here are poems -- some of the finest of his career -- that together compose a sweeping and embattled meditation on the themes of a life guided by Hermes: deity of music and deception, escort of the dead, inventor of instruments, brilliant messenger and trickster of heaven. Books > Poetry List_Books, [PU: Farrar, Straus and Giroux]<