The Regatta in the Skies: Selected Long Poems

by Lieberman, Laurence

• ISBN13: 9780820320359
• ISBN10: 0820320358
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of Georgia Pr

Summary

The Regatta in the Skiesis a wonderful, complex collection of the best long poems from each phase of Laurence Lieberman's distinguished but still developing career, from his midwestern American childhood to his travels to the exotic landscapes of the underwater world, Japan, and the Caribbean.In a number of recent poems, Lieberman view islands of the West Indies through the eyes of intriguing local artists. Using cross-cultural relationships on individual and national levels to create a new kind of "poetry as witness," he weaves stories into the poems. No less engaging than his subjects are his cadences, ordered in intricately textured lines and original syllabic stanza patterns."Orange County Plague: Scenes" focuses on the plight of the orange trees in southern California, blending motifs of politics, social history, civil rights of ethnic minorities, and the mythology surrounding them with descriptions of nature and landscape. This linked progression of seventeen poems, structured like a sonnet sequence, establishes the primacy of place in Lieberman's continuing canon.The longest poems deal with Jamaica, but others take as their settings a number of the smaller Caribbean islands, including Montserrat. In the poem "The Factories of Bay Leaf and Lime" Lieberman celebrates instinctive beauties of Montserrat's culture and workplace, and helps memorialize its national character at a time when the entire country is threatened with extinction by a volcano.The Regatta in the Skiesis a bold and unforgettable collection from a poet at the top of his form.

Author Biography

Laurence Lieberman is a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of eleven volumes of poetry, including Dark Songs: Slave House and Synagogue, and his work has appeared in the New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and the Hudson Review.

Table of Contents

1. New Poems	3	(72)
Jutta, Wooing the Night Herons	3	(11)
Faces Etched in Bougainvillea	14	(9)
Cactus Bride: The Rain Birth of Onima	23	(6)
The Ghost Cross of Ile des Saintes	29	(8)
Bitter Faith: Song of the Lepers' Chef	37	(8)
The Factories of Bay Leaf and Lime	45	(10)
Wind-surfer's Revenge at Horseshoe Battery	55	(20)
2. Earlier Poems	75
Orange County Plague: Scenes	75	(9)
Whelk Hunter in the Staghorns	84	(7)
I. Flying on the Surface	84	(2)
II. Whelk Hunter in the Staghorns	86	(3)
III. Moles in the Whelk Nest	89	(2)
In Pursuit of the Angel	91	(6)
The Regatta in the Skies	97	(12)
I. Ago Bay: The Regatta in the Skies	97	(2)
II. The Roof Tableau of Kashikojima	99	(4)
III. The Sea Caves of Dogashima	103	(6)
The Grave Rubbings	109	(9)
Joren: The Volcanic Falls	118	(14)
Ode to the Runaway Caves	132	(24)
Song of the River Sweep	156