House of Days: Poems - Softcover

Parini, Jay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805057145 ISBN 13: 9780805057140

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks, 1998

Synopsis

In House of Days, his fourth collection of poems, Jay Parini moves beyond his earlier work to address the environmental and spiritual crises that afflict us in the late twentieth century. In all, House of Days represents a major development in the richly varied career of this hugely accomplished poet, novelist, and biographer.

About this title

Review

In this beautifully crafted volume, Parini takes on the natural world in all its splendor, allowing aptly chosen images to express a full emotional palette. From the first poem, a tightly woven sonnet lamenting the disappearance of falling stars, "their dwindling into dark with less and less / of anything a witness might recall," it is clear we are in the hands of a master. The natural world is seen as a place of redemption, where

a feast is made of what has fallen
and the wind, as patient as ever,
circles and assumes this shape or that one,
always moving on: from leaf to lizard,
seed to finch to splatter in mud,
where breath begins, where eyes fall open,
where the world invents itself again.

Parini is nothing less than a poet-alchemist, transforming the ordinary facts of weather and season into gold. If Ralph Waldo Emerson could read these poems, he'd nod and smile in the knowledge his transcendentalist vision endures. --Martha Silano

About the Author

In addition to his poetry, Jay Parini is the author of numerous novels (The Last Station and Benjamin's Crossing, see pp. 62D63 Owl Books catalog), and an acclaimed biography of John Steinbeck (Owl Books, 0-8050-4700-X, $14.95). He lives with his family in Middlebury, Vermont.

Edition details

• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805057145
• ISBN 13: 9780805057140
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96