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"Recognized by the Whiting Awards for his 'wildly original' poetry and his "uncanny and unparalleled ability to blend lyric and narrative," Atsuro Riley extends and deepens his uncommon mastery here. In Heard-Hoard, Riley has 'razor-exacted' and 'raw-wired' this absorbing new sequence of poems, a vivid weavework rendering and remembering an American place and its people. At once an album of tales, a portrait gallery, an "inscritched" dirt-mural, and a hymnbook, Heard-Hoard encompasses a chorus of voices, shot through with their (mostly human) histories and their mysteries. From the crackling story-man calling us together in the primal circle to Tammy figuring "time and time that yonder oak," Atsuro Riley's new collection is a profound evocation of lives and lore, "a lit meat-mesh of heards." In an early blurb, Linda Gregerson writes, "The category of the 'mythic' has been much cheapened by overuse, but Heard-Hoard restores the term to its original and originary power. The English language has rarely been so richly augmented in such little space. His first book won Riley an extensive and passionate following. His readers will be thrilled, as I am, by this new collection." Contracts, Rights, and Permissions"--
About the author
Atsuro Riley is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and winner of the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the author of
Heard-Hoard, winner of the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, a finalist for PEN America's Voelcker Poetry Award, a
Boston Globe Best Book of the Year, and a
Bookworm Top 10 Book of the Year. He is also the author of
Romey's Order, which received the Whiting Award, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award,
The Believer Poetry Award, and the Witter Bynner Award from the Library of Congress. His other honors include Lannan Foundation and NEA Fellowships, the Pushcart Prize, and the Wood Prize given by
POETRY magazine. His poems have been anthologized in
The Mind Has Cliffs of Fall, The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of POETRY Magazine, The Oxford Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry,
Poems of the American South,
The McSweeney's Book of Poets Picking Poets,
Poems from Far and Wide,
Vinegar and Char,
Gracious, and
Home: 100 Poems. Brought up in the South Carolina lowcountry, he lives in San Francisco.
Summary
Winner of the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, this new collection of verse from Atsuro Riley offers a vivid weavework rendering and remembering an American place and its people.
