The Fall

by Nurkse, D.

• ISBN13: 9780375413650
• ISBN10: 0375413650
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-09-01
• Publisher: Knopf

Summary

In this elegant collection, D. Nurkse elegizes a lost father, a foreshortened childhood, and a young marriage. From the drenched lawns of suburbia to the streets of Brooklyn, he delivers up the small but crucial epiphanies that propel an American coming-of-age and chronicles the development of a tender yet exacting consciousness. As the diversions of childhood prefigure the heartbreak of adulthood, Nurkse captures the exquisite sadness of each small "fall" that carries us further from our early innocence. In the book's final section, the poet turns to face mortality with a series of stirring poems about illness in midlife. Throughout, Nurkse celebrates the sheer strangeness of our perceptions in a language that is both astute and surpassingly lyrical.

Author Biography

D. Nurkse is the author of seven books of poetry. He has received the Whiting Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, two grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Tanne Foundation award, and the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry. He has also written widely on human rights.

Table of Contents

Prologue
The Threshold	p. 3
Sunlight	p. 7
Treasures of the Cove	p. 8
Northbound	p. 10
The Play Hour	p. 11
Initials	p. 13
First Date	p. 14
Red-and-Silver Schwinn	p. 16
The Migraine	p. 17
The Dog	p. 18
Pennies for Flies	p. 19
Left Field	p. 20
The Rules of the Game	p. 21
The Hellmann's Jar	p. 22
Darkness	p. 24
Born Again	p. 26
Paradise	p. 27
Jumping Off the Fire Tower for Laura	p. 29
Bread and Wine	p. 31
At the Stage of Riddles	p. 33
Under the Porch	p. 34
The Fall	p. 35
Cat's-Eye	p. 39
An Opening in the Largest City	p. 43
At Payless	p. 44
Empire Boulevard	p. 45
The Engagement	p. 46
Riding West with Laura	p. 48
Black River	p. 50
The Stone House at Black River	p. 52
Honeymoon in Varia	p. 54
Leaving Zaragoza	p. 55
The Formal Gardens at Coimbra	p. 56
Riches of the Interior	p. 58
Marriage in the Infinite City	p. 59
The Rapture	p. 61
Custody Wars	p. 62
The Part	p. 63
A Couple in Garden City	p. 65
The Wilson Avenue Kings	p. 67
Saint Peter's Basement	p. 68
Lucky Ford	p. 69
The Tower Overlooking the City	p. 70
A Path in Grace	p. 72
Music from an Inner Room	p. 77
The Book of Splendor	p. 79
The Prognosis	p. 80
At Mary Magdalene	p. 82
Back Wards	p. 83
At Holy Name	p. 85
The Waiting Room	p. 86
How We Are Made Light	p. 87
Tests	p. 88
The Gift	p. 91
Mercy	p. 92
Side Effects of Colirium	p. 93
A Night at Mount Sinai	p. 94
The Parasite	p. 95
A Prayer for Patience in Sickness	p. 97
Saint Anthony's Grounds	p. 98
Leaving Mary Magdalene	p. 99
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Red-And-Silver Schwinn

I would never learn.
She would never love me.

When I wriggled on that cruel seat
a blind force--perhaps hope--
smashed me into the sprinkler system.

Even when I wheeled it,
the bike jack-knifed.

It seemed the fall
was planned within me.

Polite with rage
I refused trainer wheels.

I carried the frame tenderly
over newly sodded lawns.

Once it was my burden
there was nowhere we could not go.

Sunlight

I trained a magnifying glass
on the ant with the crumb
and he stepped away
from the pool of light.
I held the beam
wherever he was going.
At once he shriveled
to a tiny black line
whose ends rose slowly
to meet each other.
I aimed at my hand
and sensed that fire
infinitely distant, close,
then inside me:
when I dropped the lens
I felt no comfort
and called my father's name.


Northbound

A bell tolled six times
on an island in the fog
and my father turned toward it.

Angelus or a signal?
Where the reefs must be,
a buoy chimed at random.

How to row toward a voice
once it has fallen silent?
He listened tight-lipped:

bitterns, gagging laughter,
slap and hiss of Castine,
creaking oars, my crying.

A white hand cupped us
so we faced each other
entirely inside the mind.

Then he began stroking powerfully,
a vein swelled on his forehead,
his blue knuckles rose like pistons,

even I could sense us circle
under the spell of his right arm,
and he lost himself counting

in his exile's language--
twenty, a thousand, as if our home
lay beyond those enormous numbers.

---

Excerpted from The Fall by D. Nurkse
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.