Litanies Near Water

by Buck, Paula Closson

• ISBN13: 9780807132975
• ISBN10: 0807132977
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-03-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

Infused with Mediterranean landscapes, the poems of LITANIES NEAR WATER, Paula Closson Buck's second collection, probe the world through language that acts sometimes like a divining rod and sometimes like a lightning rod. Elegant meditative lyrics such as "You Cannot Love the Wind" and "Theory of an Impersonal God" answer to politically alert poems like "Monk Killed by Tractor in Bid to Dodge Police." Ultimately, in Buck's deft hand, the lyrical quest for understanding becomes a form of diplomacy between the physical and the metaphysical, between instances of beauty and the violence that threatens daily.

Author Biography

Paula Closson Buck teaches creative writing at Bucknell University and is editor of the literary magazine West Branch.

Table of Contents

The Smallest Man Carries the Candle
If Silence Is Any Indication	p. 3
November Consolation	p. 4
The Smallest Man Carries the Candle	p. 5
You Cannot Love the Wind	p. 6
Report from the Compound	p. 7
A Mother's Ten-Second History Lesson	p. 9
Verona as the Past	p. 10
After the Feast	p. 11
Monk Killed by Tractor in Bid to Dodge Police	p. 12
Pagan Litany	p. 13
Confessions of the Natural World
Waiting for Tassos	p. 17
Primer in Black	p. 18
Report from My Own Backyard	p. 20
Landscape with a Very Fat Man, Seated	p. 22
The Moment: Stone Fish	p. 23
Confessions of the Natural World	p. 25
Beetle	p. 28
Storm Coming to Torcello	p. 29
Dogs at the Temple of the Olympian Zeus	p. 30
Litany of Resistance	p. 33
What They Had Come For	p. 35
Metaphor as Prayer
Metaphor as Prayer	p. 39
Report from the Aftermath	p. 41
The Heart Is	p. 43
Elegy for My Novel	p. 44
Feast	p. 47
Theory of an Impersonal God	p. 48
Tigers	p. 50
Evening	p. 51
Last Days	p. 54
Night in Venice: Summer	p. 56
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.