Walking Backwards: Poems 1966-2016 - Hardcover

Koethe, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374285799 ISBN 13: 9780374285791

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018

Synopsis

Collected poems from America’s searching and thoughtful philosopher-poet

. . . There’s something
Comforting about rituals renewed, even adolescents’ pipe dreams:
They’ll find out soon enough, and meanwhile find their places
In the eternal scenery, less auguries or cautionary tales

Than parts of an unchanging whole, as ripe for contemplation
As a planisphere or the clouds: the vexed destinies, the shared life,
The sempiternal spectacle of someone preaching to the choir
While walking backwards in the moment on a warm spring afternoon.


John Koethe’s poems―always dynamic and in process, never static or complete―luxuriate in the questions that punctuate the most humdrum of routines, rendering a robust portrait of an individual: complicated, quotidian, and resounding with truth. Gathering for the first time his impressive and award-winning body of work, published between 1966 and 2016, Walking Backwards introduces this gifted poet to a new, wider readership.

About this title

About the Author

John Koethe is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA.

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374285799
• ISBN 13: 9780374285791
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384