Rhapsodies of a Repeat Offender: Poems - Hardcover

Koestenbaum, Wayne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 089255200X ISBN 13: 9780892552009

Publisher: Persea Books, 1994

Synopsis

Koestenbaum, Wayne

About this title

About the Author

Wayne Koestenbaum is Associate Professor of English at Yale.

Reviews

Koestenbaum's ( Ode to Anna Moffo ) second volume of poetry reads like a catalogue of immediacy, of mystical and erotic ecstasy so emotionally charged that one cannot quite call it confessional--the energy gathered into these poems creates a voice of its own. The book is comprised of a series of poems caught between two long vertiginous works, both aptly entitled "Rhapsody." The first recollects, with lyrical precision, his childhood, his first lies ("My mother is pregnant") and his first apprehension of "atoms exploding in fission" incarnated in a terminally ill young boy named "Baldie" who, with "molten collision," refuses to be tormented by a school bully. When Koestenbaum recalls his piano lessons, he seemingly slips in his own ars poetica : "I can't / depend on pressure for crescendo, but / must dement the rhythm so it / stumbles, hesitates expressively, the line / opening its heart in quick crotchets." (The utterances that make up the last poem do exactly this.) He seeks to "ambush" his self-conscious side, which has kept him from "the inspiration to speak without error or apology!" So, speak he does--improvising, questioning and probing with a directness that doesn't so much draw you in as recklessly push you along. If less ambitious readers find they need a break from these brilliantly exhausting works, they can turn to the poetry that falls between the pillars of his two "Rhapsody" poems, and find Koestenbaum focusing on his homosexual awakening and his relationship to classical music. This magnetic collection, once started, is difficult to put down. And once finished, readers may find themselves turning to page one and starting all over again.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

If beauty and truth are the hallmarks of quality verse, then Koestenbaum (Ode to Anna Moffo and Other Poems, LJ 9/15/90) has climbed the pinnacle and raised his arms in triumph with this work. His poems center on the power of the word, to which he surrenders; he is thereby liberated to "say something clearly and pack [his] voice away." The reader is taken on a journey through music, mortality, sexual revelation, and a young man's affinity for the leading ladies of the silver screen. However, the masterpiece of the volume, a book in itself, is the poem "Rhapsody," in which Koestenbaum uses his love for music (an extension of the word) to take the reader on a nine-part expedition that is intimate, yet not confessional; improvisational, yet not reckless; fantastic, yet not garish. This may well be the best long poem since John Berryman's Homage to Mistress Bradstreet. Koestenbaum succeeds because he possesses the poet's true courage: he has composed "a poem [that] should be the letter you dare not write or send." Highly recommended.-Tim Gavin, Episcopal Acad., Merion, Pa.-- should be the letter you dare not write or send." Highly recommended.
Tim Gavin, Episcopal Acad., Merion, Pa.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Persea Books
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 089255200X
• ISBN 13: 9780892552009
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 120