Ours: Poems (Cloth First Edition)

Cole Swensen

ISBN 10: 0520254635 / ISBN 13: 9780520254633

Published by University of California Press, 2008

Berkeley: University of California Press (2008) First edition. First printing. Hardbound/cloth. New. A pristing unread copy. This is the hardcover edition, issued without jacket, in a very small printing, probably less than 1,000. Part of the NEW CALIFORNIA POETRY SERIES, edited by Robert Hass, Calvin Bedient, Brenda Hillman, and Forrest Gander. Never opened. Smoke-free. Shipped in a well padded box You cannot find a better copy. 0.0. Seller Inventory # leaf46

Synopsis:

These poems are about gardens, particularly the seventeenth-century French baroque gardens designed by the father of the form, André Le Nôtre. While the poems focus on such examples as Versailles, which Le Nôtre created for Louis XIV, they also explore the garden as metaphor. Using the imagery of the garden, Cole Swensen considers everything from human society to the formal structure of poetry. She looks in particular at the concept of public versus private property, asking who actually owns a garden? A gentle irony accompanies the question because in French, the phrase "le nôtre" means "ours." Whereas all of Le Nôtre's gardens were designed and built for the aristocracy, today most are public parks. Swensen probes the two senses of "le nôtre" to discover where they intersect, overlap, or blur.

About the Author: Cole Swensen is the author of eleven previous books of poetry. She is also a translator and has won the PEN USA Award in Literary Translation. Her poetry has won the Iowa Poetry Prize and the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award, and she teaches at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Ours: Poems (Cloth First Edition)
Publisher: University of California Press
Publication Date: 2008
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: New
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Edition: 1st Edition