Levering Avenue: Poems (Richard Wilbur Award, 1) - Hardcover

Daseler, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0930982509 ISBN 13: 9780930982508

Publisher: Univ of Evansville Pr, 1998

Synopsis

Levering Avenue by Robert Daseler, recipient of the 1998 Richard Wilbur Award, is a unique and powerful collection of contemporary sonnets dealing with the tragedy of human loss -- specifically the loss of a beloved wife. The collection's lyric poems stand both individually and collectively as a moving portrait and examination of the devastation of human grief. As poet and critic Robert Mezey explains, "Daseler writes of serious matters in a vigorous, plain English, and he sees things from an original and often unpredictable angle." As with Thomas Hardy's poems about the death of his wife, Levering Avenue renders an unforgettable, moving, and ultimately heroic confrontation with the inevitable human tragedies of loss and loneliness.

About this title

About the Author:

Robert Daseler is a graduate of Pomona College and the University of California at Berkeley. His poems have been published in The Cimarron Review, The Formalist, Hellas, and other literary periodicals and his two plays, Dragon Lady and Alekhine's Defense, were produced by the South Coast Reperory Theatre. A widower, he currently lives with his two sons, Graham and Chase, in Davis, California, where he is the Director of Public Affairs for the California State Library.

From Kirkus Reviews:

paper 0-930982-51-7 Wyatt Prunty picked West Coast playwright and state library executive Daseler for this years Richard Wilbur Award: a first book of 60 sonnets that does manage to find richness and diversity within the repetition of form. The poet focuses mainly on the death of his wife, mother of his two sons, and weaves in and out of this main narrative with sonnets of blissful memory, profound regret, and simple blessings. Alternately anecdotal and philosophic, Daseler relieves the somber tones with some lighter poems about amateur homebuilding (Home Repair Depot), loving the sexy and violent movies we shouldnt (Cineplex), auditioning actresses for a play (The Audition), and an inoperative carousel (The Carousel). But Daselers grief runs deep throughout this melancholic sonnet sequence, and the placement of the poems presents an emotional cascade: no sooner does the poet recall a vision of his wifes loveliness than he descends into self- lacerating loneliness. First Victims explores the guilt of hurting those we love the most before Night Fog remembers the summer of their separation; Her Voice lingers lovingly on her distinctiveness before the title sonnet records a visit to their old apartment with the boys after her deatha moment at once nostalgic and sad. Her presence is felt everywhere: a photograph of her dressing, her favorite towels, her antiques, her garden. But as Nothing suggests, shes always defined by her absence: the sullen tyranny of what is not. Daseler takes us through his efforts to jumpstart his life: a trio of satiric sonnets on classified ads, a poem mocking his admiration for a woman beyond his reach, another on waking up with a woman not his wife. Like the expert sonnet sequence it is, Daselers volume builds to its final argument: his wifes love was all, and the immediately necessary struggle is to triumph over grief. A strong debut that finds its emotional balance: sentimental but not mopey. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of Evansville Pr
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0930982509
• ISBN 13: 9780930982508
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 66