Twice Removed: Poems - Softcover

Angel, Ralph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1889330582 ISBN 13: 9781889330587

Publisher: Sarabande Books, 2001

Synopsis

Poems, said Robert Lowell, should be events, not records of events. The poems of Twice Removed are events, set in the "bright between," that place between short days and long shadows, between past and future, between the inviolate self and the public person.

In this third collection, Angel writes the arias of our subtext, provoking in the reader the recognition of longings just beyond reach of articulation. And though his poems are addressed to complexity, the language is not obscure: Angel's intense, visionary lyricism arrives in a seamless weave of elegance and streetwise savvy, the cadences somehow hypnotic and urgent at once. This is a poet with the audacity to push the very limits of the American idiom in order to say things that could not previously be said, using sounds not previously heard. Ralph Angel stands as an American original, and Twice Removed is a book that will expand his already large and passionate audience of readers.

Ralph Angel is the author of two previous collections of poetry: Neither World, which received the 1995 James Laughlin Award of The Academy of American Poets, and Anxious Latitudes, which was published in the Wesleyan University Press New Poets Series. His work has been collected in numerous anthologies, including The Best American Poetry, New American Poets of the '90s, and Forgotten Language: Contemporary Poets and Nature. His most recent honors include a Pushcart Prize and awards from the Fulbright Foundation, Poetry magazine, and the Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain. Originally from Seattle, Mr. Angel now lives in Los Angeles.

About this title

About the Author

Angel is the author of four poetry books: Anxious Latitudes; Neither World, which received the 1995 James Laughlin Award; Twice Removed; and Exceptions and Melancholies: Poems 1986-2006. He teaches at the University of Redlands, and a member of the MFA Program in Writing faculty at Vermont College. Originally from Seattle, he lives in Los Angeles.

From the Back Cover

Poems, said Robert Lowell, should be events, not records of events. The poems of Twice Removed are events, set in the "bright between, " that place between short days and long shadows, between past and future, between the inviolate self and the public person. Ralph Angel's poems see, and then reveal, Joycean "layers of history" -- the past showing through the present, a host of bustling echoes set in motion by the vanished lives of others, and by the poet's own previous selves. "Among the very dawn of us, " Angel sings, "a single shrug of heart unleashes waves of / birds and voices from the plaza." Angel's poems are haunted by a sort of collective esprit de l'escalier -- an anguish that things we left undone and unsaid go on resonating: "A bride and groom stand shivering on a tarmac / in the mist, and / they are happy. Each one // and all of us entangled." Angel writes the arias of our subtext, provoking in the reader the recognition of longings just beyond reach of articulation. And though his poems are addressed to complexity, the language is not obscure: Angel's intense, visionary lyricism arrives in a seamless weave of elegance and streetwise savvy, the cadences somehow hypnotic and urgent at once. This is a poet with the audacity to push the very limits of the American idiom in order to say things that could not previously be said, using sounds not previously heard. Ralph Angel stands as an American original, and Twice Removed is a book that will expand his already large and passionate audience of readers.

From the Inside Flap

Poems, said Robert Lowell, should be events, not records of events. The poems of Twice Removed are events, set in the bright between, that place between short days and long shadows, between past and future, between the inviolate self and the public person. Ralph Angel's poems see, and then reveal, Joycean layers of history--the past showing through the present, a host of bustling echoes set in motion by the vanished lives of others, and by the poet's own previous selves. Among the very dawn of us, Angel sings, a single shrug of heart unleashes waves of / birds and voices from the plaza.

Angel's poems are haunted by a sort of collective esprit de l'escalier--an anguish that things we left undone and unsaid go on resonating: A bride and groom stand shivering on a tarmac / in the mist, and / they are happy. Each one // and all of us entangled. Angel writes the arias of our subtext, provoking in the reader the recognition of longings just beyond reach of articulation. And though his poems are addressed to complexity, the language is not obscure: Angel's intense, visionary lyricism arrives in a seamless weave of elegance and streetwise savvy, the cadences somehow hypnotic and urgent at once.

This is a poet with the audacity to push the very limits of the American idiom in order to say things that could not previously be said, using sounds not previously heard. Ralph Angel stands as an American original, and Twice Removed is a book that will expand his already large and passionate audience of readers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Poem by Ralph Angel:

"And More"

I open my eyes again. So be it, / good. Don't leave. The dark slides into slippers / easily. The quiet finds a robe. The room / rises and is falling with your / breathing. As if / I'd never seen you sleeping, / in this house and warmth, / at this hour, this bed / I can't quite / put my finger on / and like.

Edition details

• Publisher: Sarabande Books
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1889330582
• ISBN 13: 9781889330587
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 73