Selected Poems - Softcover

Rutsala, Vern

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0934257612 ISBN 13: 9780934257619

Publisher: Story Line Press, 1991

Synopsis

Gathers poems from seven of the author's previous books

About this title

Reviews

Rutsala ( Ruined Cities ) is obsessed with the past. In many of the poems in this uncompromising, introspective collection, he takes us through former dwellings and landscapes where we see the decayed remnants of once-vital lives. In "The Shack Outside Boise," the poet pokes around piles of junk and perceives "the sadness they call possessions, / the helpless objects . . . brought with great effort-- / old generators, bald tires, / a trunk full of mildew." In "The New Life," the passing years pulverize our lives into dust: "This is all you have-- / hard substance / ground to powder. . . . Your own life too / like ash sucked up the chimney." With starkly evocativeok? aa/yes/pk imagery, in "The Icecold Freight" the poet takes us back to the time he and his father built a house together in a desolate neighborhood. Although times were tough, Rutsala was so moved by having created something concrete and lasting that he returns often to the theme of the home as a container of the evanescence of human existence. He is unsentimental, examining the ghostliness of his past with a sad but brave persistence, fashioning poems that are haunting for their painful honesty.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Story Line Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0934257612
• ISBN 13: 9780934257619
• Binding: Paperback