The Executive Director of the Fallen World (Phoenix Poets) - Hardcover

Rector, Liam

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226706044 ISBN 13: 9780226706047

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2006

Synopsis

The Worry of the Far Right

The Reverend Donald Wildmon, executive director

Of the American Family Association in Tupelo,

Mississippi, birthplace of Elvis Presley, he who

Unleashed the libido of a generation, announced today

That he, the Reverend, wanted again an America

In which he could drive his convertible into town,

Park it, leave his keys in the ignition,

And worry only that it might rain,

Rather than worry about Liam Rector.

 America—you are on notice. Liam Rector has little patience for “sincere” poetry, spin-doctored politicos, or moral hot air of any kind. The titles of these poems could easily serve as their own warning labels: those with clinical depression or easily triggered violent tendencies should use with caution. 

The Executive Director of the Fallen World is fearless and forthright, just the sort of blunt reality check that is missing from so much of contemporary, over-stylized poetry. Rector’s stoicism and slightly murderous sense of humor pervade these poems as he doffs his hat to humility and audacity, taking on America, money, movement, marriages, and general cultural mayhem. The characters and voices in Rector’s poems are, by tragic turns, unflinching, clearly and cleanly bitter, sarcastically East Coast, and lyrical.  Writing in tercets throughout, the poet breathes new life into this classic form with skill that might just send some unsuspecting readers over the edge. 

As the former executive director of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and a spirited First Amendment advocate who has sparred on screen with Bill O’Reilly, Liam Rector knows whereof he speaks in The Executive Director of the Fallen World.

About this title

About the Author

Liam Rector is founder and director of the graduate Writing Seminars at Bennington College.

Reviews

Rector (American Prodigal, 1994) is the founding director of the graduate Writing Seminars at Bennington College and has also worked for the National Endowment for the Arts. His third book in 20 years is mature and confident almost to the point of swaggering. In sometimes prose-like, sometimes musical tercets, Rector spits bile at a culture in decline ("America likes to think// Every one can recover from every thing/ But about this,/ Especially, America is wrong") and recounts his wild hippie days, taking outgrown ideals to task ("It was a moment of solidarity/ Between youth, a thing not so uncommon in those days"). While a few lines are too big for the poems' britches, there are a number of standouts, especially "Now," in which an entire life is cynically, but movingly, compressed into just over four pages: "... a few years/ To play around while being/ Bossed around." The reward is hard-nosed humility and gratitude after surviving failed marriages and nearly terminal cancer, which "gave this to me: being/ Able to sit, comfortably." (Sept.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0226706044
• ISBN 13: 9780226706047
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96