The Swimmer: Poems - Hardcover

Ludvigson, Susan G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807111554 ISBN 13: 9780807111550

Publisher: LSU Press, 1984

Synopsis

In The Swimmer, Susan Ludvigson writes of the enveloping sensuality of swimming―gliding beneath the waves, basking in shimmering light on the surface, drifting in the pleasure of the water. In these poems, swimming can be the perfect escape from life, a sublime refuge from the cares and agonies that lie on the shore or wait at the edge of the pool.

Ludvigson begins with poems that speak of the griefs that punctuate life. She writes of the fearsome mysteries of passion, the agonies that can be reawakened by memory, the sabotage of dreams, the sadness of living in a world painfully contracted by the deaths of loved ones.

It’s not the world I care about now,
but a few lives.
Yours. Mine. The friends
who go on dying.
After Don, after, Anne,
I can hardly believe how it continues.

She then turns to poems that seek escape from grief, in the dark humor of obscure news items―“Man Arrested in Hacking Death Tells Police He mistook Mother-in-Law for Raccoon”―and in the absorbing depths of art.

But these are escapes of the mind, momentary transformations of identity that cannot finally bring calm to the spirit. In the final section of the book, Ludvigson returns to the lure of the water:

Under that starry sky, you’ll float
in the shadows of shadows.
three might be no end to it, just water
darkening into night, then slowly
restoring itself.
to blue. The silence will be a new entrance
to dreams, sleep a new way to breathe.

Sensual and moving these are poems of renewal and of loss, poems that seek the moments of calm amid the jagged hours of daily life.

About this title

About the Author:

Susan Ludvigson is the author of eight previous volumes of poems and the recipient of Guggenheim, Rockefeller, Fulbright, NEA, and Witter Bynner Fellowships. A native of Wisconsin, she has made her home in the South for more than thirty years and travels to France as much as possible. She teaches at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Review:

After He Called Her A Witch
After Warnings From The County Prosecutor Minister Agrees...
Anne, Dying
The Artist
Artist's Colony, After My Friend's Death
Cleopatra
Conquering The Night Jasmine
The Crossing
Darwin Discovers The Galapagos
A Day Of Snow
Deciding To Return
Encounter At The Harbor
Everything Has Turned To Question
The Garden Of Earthly Delights
Grief
His Confession
I Arrive In A Small Boat, Alone
Keeping The Truth Alive
Leaving
Man Arrested In Hacking Death Tells Police He Mistook...
The Man Who Brought The Gypsy Moth
The Man Who Can't Love
My Advice
The Night We Sang
Nobleman With His Hand On His Chest
Prayer
The Sabotage Of Dreams
Some Notes On Courage
The Swimmer
Swimming
Tracking The Deer
Trying To Come To Terms
Virginia With Artsts
Waiting For Light
Where We Are Never Lost
Yesterday I Swam In The Rain
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About this edition

• Publisher: LSU Press
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0807111554
• ISBN 13: 9780807111550
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 53