The River in the Sky: A Poem - Hardcover

James, Clive

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1631494732 ISBN 13: 9781631494734

Publisher: Liveright, 2018

Synopsis

In this deracinated age appears a miraculous epic that pays homage to Dante and Camus.

“Few people read Poetry any more, but I still wish to write its seedlings down, if only for the lull of gathering: no less a harvest season for being the last time,” writes Clive James in his epic poem, The River in the Sky. What emerges from this lamentation is a soaring epic of exceptional depth and overwhelming feeling, all the more extraordinary given its appearance in an age when the heroic poem seems to have disappeared from contemporary literature.

Among James’s many talents is his uncanny ability to juxtapose references to early twentieth-century poets with “offbeat humor and flyaway cultural observations” (Dwight Garner, New York Times), or allusions to the adagio of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony contrasted with references to “YouTube’s vast cosmopolis.” Whether recalling his Australian childhood or his father’s “clean white headstone” in a Hong Kong cemetery, James’s autobiographical epic ultimately helps us define the meaning of life.

About this title

About the Author

Clive James (1939―2019), author of the best-selling Cultural Amnesia and Poetry Notebook, was an Officer of the Order of Australia and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. His writing appeared in the New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.

Review

“Clive James’s book-length poem The River in the Sky is superb, an epic lament, written in late life, filled with exact and moving observations about life and culture.”
- Dwight Garner, New York Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Liveright
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1631494732
• ISBN 13: 9781631494734
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 128