Sweet Crude: Poems (Karen & Michael Braziller Books) - Softcover

Blasing, Randy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0892554223 ISBN 13: 9780892554225

Publisher: Persea, 2013

Synopsis

The eighth collection from a poet of formal grace and open heart.

This is the eighth collection from a poet of formal grace an open heart. Blasing's poems of love, the passing of time, and the kinds of desires that transcribe a life are timeless and full of warmth.

About this title

About the Author

Randy Blasing, a former National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow, is the author of seven books of poetry, including Choice Words: Poems 1970-2005. He is also the eminent translator, alongside Mutlu Konuk, of the renowned Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. He lives in Lincoln, Rhode Island.

Reviews

Blasing is the author of seven previous books of poetry and the cotranslator of nine volumes by the renowned Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. The recipient of fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, he edits Copper Beech Press. This is, for the most part, a book of love poems tracking a May-December romance that produces a son. Sweet Crude is a grade of oil, and these poems are sweet, as in tender, and crude, meaning frank and unapologetic about sexual love. This is not agape but eros; the body of the beloved is the object of praise and the vehicle of inspiration. The child of this union is beloved and seen in a wistful light: the poet will not see him grow up, and the child will miss the father he will never have a chance to know completely. The style is uniform—iambic pentameter—and most of the poems are sonnets: “Mine’s the old story my boy lends new life: / bloodlines come down to story lines, with luck.” --Michael Autrey

Edition details

• Publisher: Persea
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0892554223
• ISBN 13: 9780892554225
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80