Abundant Life New & Selected Poems

by Lazer, Hank

• ISBN13: 9781946104571
• ISBN10: 1946104574
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-05-01
• Publisher: Chax Press

Summary

Portions, spirit, elegy, lyrics, awakenings, sutra, serendipity, loss, mindedness, rebelling, reveling, unraveling, sounderings, melody, offkey, noisily, rhythm, negation, improvisation, abandon, deflection, renewal, cascade, cadence, grace, weaving, enigma,  shekinah: a door, a jar. These are a few of his favorite things. — Charles Bernstein Hank Lazer’ s Abundant Life: New and Selected Poems shows how Lazer thinks with and through writing. All of it is literally experimental in that each new project is a challenge he gives himself, a way to experience life differently. Here we have his “ shape writing” but also short, jagged lyrics reminiscent of Creeley, and long narrative poems about losing one’ s parents. What unites this work is Lazer’ s joint commitment to mindfulness (a quest to find the sacred within the everyday) and to relationality, to dialogue. His books arise and exist in conversation with others: philosophers— such as Levinas and Merleau-Ponty— as well as Zen monks, and admired poets including Emily Dickinson and Creeley. This work may be heady, but it is also deeply human. — Rae Armantrout

Author Biography

Hank Lazer , PhD (Author), Tuscaloosa, Alabama (United States of America) - Hank Lazer has published thirty-five books of poetry, including his most recent, As We Vanish from Public View (7 Points Press) and field recordings of mind in morning (with 15 music-poetry tracks with Holland Hopson on banjo – available on YouTube). Along with Abundant Life: New & Selected Poems, Lazer has published a companion volume of essays, poetics, and interviews: What Were You Thinking: Essays 2006– 2024 (Lavender Ink). In April 2015, Lazer was selected for the state of Alabama’ s highest literary award, the Harp

Table of Contents

Contents from Days 11 from Elegies & Vacations 29 from The New Spirit 65 from Portions 87 from N18 109 from Poems Hidden in Plain View 121 from Thinking in Jewish 153 from Evidence of Being Here: Beginning in Havana (N27) 169 from Slowly Becoming Awake (N32) 181 from Poems that Look Just Like Poems 209 from Covid 19 Sutras 243 from field recordings of mind in morning 275 from When theTme Comes 293 from PIECES 313 from As We Vanish from Public View 339 New Poems 361 Notes i