Fear Itself - Hardcover

Rice, Stan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679444416 ISBN 13: 9780679444411

Publisher: Knopf, 1995

Synopsis

"In his new collection of poetry, Rice is an expert practitioner of the paranoiac-surreal . . . . His true subject is the uneasy equation between horror and beauty, the 'liquification of flame' and the 'liquid of order.' He is often capable of delivering the instructive surprises of the best poetry."

--Graham Christian, Library Journal


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this title

About the Author

Stan Rice was for many years associated with San Francisco State University, as Professor of English and Creative Writing, Assistant Director of the Poetry Center, and Chairman of the Creative Writing Department.

From the Inside Flap

new collection of poetry, Rice is an expert practitioner of the paranoiac-surreal . . . . His true subject is the uneasy equation between horror and beauty, the 'liquification of flame' and the 'liquid of order.' He is often capable of delivering the instructive surprises of the best poetry."<br><br>--Graham Christian, <i>Library Journal</i><br><br><br><i>From the Trade Paperback edition.</i>

Reviews

"I have gone in/To bear witness/And report back:/Chaos, sir," says Rice in "The Report" early in this volume. It is no surprise, then, to find that in his fifth collection of poetry Rice is an expert practitioner of the paranoiac-surreal; he walks the disquieting dreamscape familiar from the work of such poets as Galway Kinnell and Charles Simic. Despite his occasional insistence on the abrasive and vulgar (a church congregation portrayed as "semen-and blood-spurting sticks" marks the low point of this manner), his true subject is the uneasy equation between horror and beauty, the "liquification of flame" and the "liquid of order." He is often capable of delivering the instructive surprises of the best poetry; in one poem, he writes of a "stream, like darjeeling"; in another, an old poet wants to "twist...like/Cellophane in flame." For most poetry collections.?Graham Christian, Andover-Harvard Theological Lib., Cambridge, Mass.
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As Rice's striking title implies, these are poems about fear, an emotion with a seemingly infinite spectrum of causes, symptoms, and effects. Rice writes about the fear of death, the sea, himself, violence, anger, the devil. He is afraid for a masochistic friend and afraid of the power of desire. "Fear is brighter than sea foam," Rice writes, and we pause to register this and find ourselves nodding. Rice takes us in unexpected directions as he catapults out of the ordinary into the philosophical. He's staunchly honest, blusteringly erotic (very male), and gruffly amusing. His efficient poems pivot on mind-seizing images--shadowy milk-white Greek statues, red threads, skeletons, an apelike God, the propulsion of spring--and a keen sense of place. Helpless in the grip of strong feelings and, at the same time, vaguely resentful, Rice is always hoping for illumination, instruction, escape. In "New York Twilight from 63rd Floor," a beautiful metaphysical poem full of longing, he declares, "All is gradual." Then, overcoming the fear of change, or perhaps plunging into its very essence, he prays, "If only I could never be the same." Donna Seaman

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679444416
• ISBN 13: 9780679444411
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 93