Items related to War Bird (Phoenix Poets)
From Three at 4:43, and here comes my friend, limping on his heavy boot, the heel come off. A cobbler's shop appears, and I buy the black nails, the dwarf's hammer, glue and strapping. I work hard on it, bending there until he speaks and walks on. But as he is dead, his voice and step make no sound. In his third book of poems, David Gewanter takes on wartime America, showing our personal costs and inextricable complicities. The constructs of our social lives, the conventions of our political values, the ambitions of our private fantasies - all these collide comically and tragically. Here, the far right marries the far left, and the sacred is undone by the profane. Gewanter's ironic vision pulls together details from science, history, philosophy, the disappearing dailies, and the emotional life of an engaged and singular mind into poems on the move with tense rhythms, rich correspondences, and daring hairpin turns. "War Bird" gives the lie to the shining moral complacencies of the homefront. Unsettling yet radiant, this collection is a book for troubled times, for what Whitman called in '1861', our 'hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year'.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
"Gewanter''s work is implicitly a respect for the past, all of ours, the grief is there, the truth not always pretty; it is solemnity belied by humor, always humor keeping us reading. . . . In this book the peaks of history are attacked from all angles, sometimes with dash, sometimes more vulnerably. Gewanter's facets are eclectic and buoyant inventions. He concocts combinations that dare us to be happy so we will not be destroyed by his truth. This is when humor becomes craft. It lifts us up while slapping us down. David Gewanter is tortured by love for the world. His remorse for that same world summarizes his poems. He is Mick Jagger and Seamus Heaney in a style well achieved, original and true."--Grace Cavalieri "Monterrat Review "
"This disciplining, demanding writing itself is enough to recommend David Gewanter's new collection, as is its no uncertain pursuit of a politics that takes no prisoners. It's common enough that poetry will use its wisdom to advance an agenda, but "War Bird" far surpasses that limited goal. The hard edge of its menacing wit, the severe tension of its layered lyricism, the implied magnitude of its statement combine to effect a moral force. This is poetry in a language that matters."--Stanley Plumly
--Stanley Plumly (04/10/2009)
"Gewanter's work is implicitly a respect for the past, all of ours, the grief is there, the truth not always pretty; it is solemnity belied by humor, always humor keeping us reading. . . . In this book the peaks of history are attacked from all angles, sometimes with dash, sometimes more vulnerably. Gewanter s facets are eclectic and buoyant inventions. He concocts combinations that dare us to be happy so we will not be destroyed by his truth. This is when humor becomes craft. It lifts us up while slapping us down. David Gewanter is tortured by love for the world. His remorse for that same world summarizes his poems. He is Mick Jagger and Seamus Heaney in a style well achieved, original and true."--Grace Cavalieri "Monterrat Review ""
This disciplining, demanding writing itself is enough to recommend David Gewanter s new collection, as is its no uncertain pursuit of a politics that takes no prisoners. It s common enough that poetry will use its wisdom to advance an agenda, but "War Bird" far surpasses that limited goal. The hard edge of its menacing wit, the severe tension of its layered lyricism, the implied magnitude of its statement combine to effect a moral force. This is poetry in a language that matters.
--Stanley Plumly (04/10/2009)"
"The poems are funny, vicious, and swirling. Many are politically motivated, their ironic language lobbying for connections between strata of meanings. How do politics and history and culture sound in the subjective, as something spoken by the poet who cares about the texture of language, the privileged placement of sound and sense, above a layer of "meaning?" Gewanter's history feels personal, a history he creates consciously in the present, as a preparation for the future."--Sean Enright "Tikkun "
About the Author:
"This disciplining, demanding writing itself is enough to recommend David Gewanter's new collection, as is its no uncertain pursuit of a politics that takes no prisoners. It's common enough that poetry will use its wisdom to advance an agenda, but "War Bird" far surpasses that limited goal. The hard edge of its menacing wit, the severe tension of its layered lyricism, the implied magnitude of its statement combine to effect a moral force. This is poetry in a language that matters."--Stanley Plumly
--Stanley Plumly (04/10/2009)
"Gewanter's work is implicitly a respect for the past, all of ours, the grief is there, the truth not always pretty; it is solemnity belied by humor, always humor keeping us reading. . . . In this book the peaks of history are attacked from all angles, sometimes with dash, sometimes more vulnerably. Gewanter s facets are eclectic and buoyant inventions. He concocts combinations that dare us to be happy so we will not be destroyed by his truth. This is when humor becomes craft. It lifts us up while slapping us down. David Gewanter is tortured by love for the world. His remorse for that same world summarizes his poems. He is Mick Jagger and Seamus Heaney in a style well achieved, original and true."--Grace Cavalieri "Monterrat Review ""
This disciplining, demanding writing itself is enough to recommend David Gewanter s new collection, as is its no uncertain pursuit of a politics that takes no prisoners. It s common enough that poetry will use its wisdom to advance an agenda, but "War Bird" far surpasses that limited goal. The hard edge of its menacing wit, the severe tension of its layered lyricism, the implied magnitude of its statement combine to effect a moral force. This is poetry in a language that matters.
--Stanley Plumly (04/10/2009)"
"The poems are funny, vicious, and swirling. Many are politically motivated, their ironic language lobbying for connections between strata of meanings. How do politics and history and culture sound in the subjective, as something spoken by the poet who cares about the texture of language, the privileged placement of sound and sense, above a layer of "meaning?" Gewanter's history feels personal, a history he creates consciously in the present, as a preparation for the future."--Sean Enright "Tikkun "
David Gewanter is professor of English at Georgetown University. He is coeditor of Robert Lowell's Collected Poems and the author of In the Belly and The Sleep of Reason, the latter two published by the University of Chicago Press.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press
- Publication date2014
- ISBN 10 0226289796
- ISBN 13 9780226289793
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages87
- Rating
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