Read more
Zusatztext “Hirsch summons the past and holds it like a stone in his palm . . . It is possibly the most triumphant kind of mourning! that which holds that things gone by are not lost! only transformed.” — The Pedestal Magazine (online) “A chronicle of the triumphs and failings of life . . . supersaturated with his delightful! instructive allusions to the greats of yore.” — New York Informationen zum Autor Edward Hirsch is the author of seven previous collections of poetry. He has received numerous awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship and a National Book Critics Circle Award, and publishes regularly in journals such as American Poetry Review and The New Yorker. A longtime teacher in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston, he is now president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Klappentext In these powerful and "achingly beautiful" (Booklist) poems of self-examination and openness from one of the cornerstones of the poetry world! Edward Hirsch assesses "the minor triumphs! the major failures" of his life! and the people and places that have colored it. Branch Library I wish I could find that skinny, long-beaked boywho perched in the branches of the old branch library.He spent the Sabbath flying between the wobbly stacksand the flimsy wooden tables on the second floor,pecking at nuts, nesting in broken spines, scratchingnotes under his own corner patch of sky.I'd give anything to find that birdy boy againbursting out into the dusky blue afternoonwith his satchel of scrawls and scribbles,radiating heat, singing with joy. A Few Encounters With My Face 1 Who is that moonlit stranger staring at me through the fog of a bathroom mirror 2 Wrinkles form a parenthesis around the eyes dry wells of sadness at three a.m. 3 The forehead furrows in a scowl a question mark puzzled since childhood 4 Faint scrawl of chickenpox and measles broken asthma nights breathing steam 5 Hair thinning like his grandfather’s all those bald ancestral thoughts 6The nose a ram’s horn a scroll as long and bumpy as the centuries 7 Greed of a Latvian horse thief surprised by the lights 8 Primitive double chin divided in two a mother and father divorcing 9 Deep red pouches and black bags a life given to sleeplessness 10 Earnest grooves ironic blotches secret scars memories medallions of middle age 11 It would take a Cubist to paint this dark face splitting in three directions 12 Identify these features with rapture and despair one part hilarity two parts grief Charades We waited on two sides of the ...
