Riff on Six: New and Selected Poems - Softcover

Reiss, James

3.2

5 ratings by Goodreads

9781844710317: Riff on Six: New and Selected Poems

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844710319 ISBN 13: 9781844710317

Publisher: Salt Pub, 2003

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This book contains poems from Reiss's first four books, plus rollicking new work from his fifth volume, Slap Me Five, and his sixth collection of laugh-outloud rhyming satirical war verse, A Child's Garden of Evil. As one reviewer said, this book "will command a wide audience."

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About the Author:

James Reiss is the author of four poetry books, the most recent of which, Ten Thousand Good Mornings, was nominated for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in such places as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and The Paris Review, plus many anthologies, textbooks, and Web sites. He has won numerous national and regional literary awards and grants. He is Professor of English and Editor of Miami University Press in Oxford, Ohio.

Review:

In Reiss, poems are laid in drawers, folded in books; memories are like pictures cut out of magazines, inertia and insomnia are the two forms of life. Pursued by the same phantoms, which reappear on the telephone, in sequential rooms, in snapshots, in slides, Reiss writes them down in an accomplished plain style, with a momentum carrying whole poems along on the humming acceleration of a single sentence. -- Helen Vendler * The New York Times Book Review * Although these poems do not make grand pronouncements they have as their source what Howard Nemerov called `great primary human drama,' and they are always interesting and often moving. -- Peter Meinke * The New Republic * Throughout this exemplary collection, the actual is perceived in all its four dimensions: the three that are described by the physical world, and the fourth which lies just behind and is described only by the noumenal eye.... Even a casual conversational style does not come without hard labor. In these poems, the labor is of course invisible to us. We have only these jazzy lines: poems that are enjoyable and, in several instances, significant. -- Frederick Smock * American Book Review * Filled with the unpredictable details that fill city life, Reiss' poems carry the reader along, like fellow passengers in the express subway car, traveling through familiar (sometimes not so friendly) locales while following the poet's train of throught.... Whatever slice of life he chooses, Reiss's typical American experiences come through-fresh, affectionately direct, touchingly true. * Booklist *

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