David's Copy: The Selected Poems of David Meltzer (Penguin Poets) - Softcover

Meltzer, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0143036181 ISBN 13: 9780143036180

Publisher: Penguin Books, 2005

Synopsis

One of the most respected poets of the Beat and San Francisco Renaissance periods, David Meltzer has kept alive interest in the interface between jazz and poetry that exploded in the 1950s. This new edition of selected poems includes previously unpublished material and serves as a map to this very prolific and interesting poet.

About this title

About the Author

David Meltzer has published numerous works of poetry, fiction, and collections of essays. He has also released four albums of recordings on the Vanguard and Capitol labels.

Reviews

A founding Beat, who worked side-by-side with Ginsberg on jazz-fueled verbal improvisation and Jewish mysticism and exegesis in verse, the California-based Meltzer has enjoyed a cult reputation since the late '50s. This selection from 30 books of poems reveals a writer of contagious, sprawling enthusiasm. Describing his early years, Meltzer recalls Ginsberg: "a bar-mitzvah of hopelessness in the Waldorf Cafeteria, hungering for the chance to detonate New York." Verse sketches of his household, wife and daughters suggest a talkier Gary Snyder. And in later, incantatory works to and about a mother goddess, the Hebrew alphabet, the Biblical Asaph ("David's chief musician"), or the composer Maurice Ravel, Meltzer simply sounds like a man possessed. "O sister let me plant you," one poem asks; "Let me love/ like green light shining through plants." Another finds the poet "Bruised before Yahweh—singing blues via crank-up gramophone—sand-blasted disc—racket of decoded time." Toward the end of the volume, longer poems speed through jazz history and current events. "Beat Thing" describes the year 1945; "No Eyes" covers the career of the saxophonist Lester "Prez" Young, his "chance & changes/ too marvelous for words." Meltzer has also edited books about jazz, San Francisco and the Beats; his undeniable passion makes him a poet Beat compleatists should treasure. (Oct.)
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Meltzer, the renowned San Francisco beatnik from Brooklyn, has gotten better with age as this new selected collection gleaned from 30 previous books published over the course of 40-plus years proves. Granted status at an early age by Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, Meltzer's work has traversed many a stylistic plain. His tone is playful, his perspective intriguing, and his voice pronounced. One appealing aspect of his work is his ability to make the everyday poetic, and he works within an incredibly wide frame of reference. What is unexpected about this collection, which includes poems about Jewish mysticism, female presence, and jazz, is that the combination of Jewish mysticism and jazz produces a stunning vernacular, one that seems to predate hip-hop and, to an extent, the resurgence of spoken word poetry. It makes sense, then, that Meltzer's poems are especially good when read aloud. Mark Eleveld
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0143036181
• ISBN 13: 9780143036180
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288
• Editor: Rothenberg Michael