Talking Dirty to the Gods Poems

by Komunyakaa, Yusef

• ISBN13: 9780374527938
• ISBN10: 0374527938
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-09-12
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

A daredevil poetic achievement nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award . . . A god isn't worth A drop of water in the hell of his good Imagination, if we can't curse Sunsets & threaten to forsake him In his storehouse of belladonna, Tiger hornets, & snakebites. --from "Meditations in a Swine Yard" No turn in any life cycle is taboo as Yusef Komunyakaa examines the primal rituals shared by insects, animals, human beings, and deities inTalking Dirty to the Gods. From "Hearsay" to "Heresy," these 132 poems, each consisting of four quatrains, are framed by innuendo and lively satire. Komunyakaa looks to nature and configures his own paradigm, in which an event as commonplace as the jewel wasp laying an egg in a cockroach becomes every bit as grand as Zeus's infidelity. The formally rigorous collection is itself a design for a systematic cosmos, a world compressed but abundant in surprise and delight. Yusef Komunyakaawas born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, in 1947. His eleven books of poems includeNeon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. A professor in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University, Komunyakaa received the 2004 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. These prismatic lyricsso solidly constructed, so thematically expansivespeak of, and for, the primal rituals and ribald taboos shared by insects, animals, human beings, and deities. "Komunyakaa's mournful surrealism seems to have found a perfect mathematical embodiment," observedThe New Yorker. "[This book] comprises 132 poems of four four-line stanzas. These are poems about the uncontrollable human and natural mysteries, and they are made sharper and more mysterious by the eternal recurrence of the stanzaic structure. Komunyakaa's lexical and historical range is large, and his improvisations move effortlessly from Theocritus to Rimbaud, Chet Baker, and the Black Panthers." "These are poems about the uncontrollable human and natural mysteries, and they are made sharper and more mysterious by the eternal recurrence of [this book's] stanzaic structure. Komunyakaa's lexical and historical range is large, and his improvisations move effortlessly from Theocritus to Rimbaud, Chet Baker, and the Black Panthers."The New Yorker "Komunyakaa wonderfully achieves the combined mischief and moralizing of Catullus, one of his acknowledged heroes . . . He refuses to be trivial; and he even dares beauty."April Bernard,The New York Times Book Review "[This] new volume is remarkable exactly because it's a category killer, a sustained anti-hierarchy. The hundred-plus poems speak equally to gods and maggots, to the mythical reaches of history, and to erotic immediacy . . . [Komunyakaa] discovers a spirited materialism, the landscape pantheistically aglow, the prime matter seemingly always at hand."Village Voice Literary Supplement(from the citation as one of the 25 Favorite Books of 2000)

Author Biography

Yusef Komunyakaa was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, in 1947. His eleven books of poems include Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize. He is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

Hearsay	3	(1)
Homo Erectus	4	(1)
Utetheisa Ornatrix, the First Goddess	5	(1)
The Centaur	6	(1)
Night Ritual	7	(1)
Lady Xoc	8	(1)
Lime	9	(1)
Ode to the Maggot	10	(1)
Slime Molds	11	(1)
Sloth	12	(1)
Janus	13	(1)
Hermaphrodite	14	(1)
Nipples	15	(1)
Scapegoat	16	(1)
Venus of Willendorf	17	(1)
Body of a Dog (Cadavere di un Cane)	18	(1)
Aftermath: The Ruin	19	(1)
Slaves Among Blades of Grass	20	(1)
Spirit Traps	21	(1)
A Portrait of (Self) Deception	22	(1)
Stesichorus of Himera	23	(1)
Sex Toys	24	(1)
Meditations on a Thumbscrew	25	(1)
Chastity Belt	26	(1)
Phocylides of Miletus	27	(1)
Bonsai, Golden Lotus	28	(1)
Envy	29	(1)
Ides of March	30	(1)
Aliens	31	(1)
Meditations in a Swine Yard	32	(1)
The Devil's Ball	33	(1)
Bedazzled	34	(1)
The Congo Snake	35	(1)
Neither/Nor	36	(1)
The Lure	37	(1)
Infidelity	38	(1)
Ukiyo-e	39	(1)
Amber	40	(1)
Ode to Dust	41	(1)
Body of a Woman (Cadavere di Donna)	42	(1)
Battle of Ten Naked Men	43	(1)
The Other Dying the Life of the One	44	(1)
The Citadel	45	(1)
Pride	46	(1)
Remus & Romulus	47	(1)
Necropolis	48	(1)
April's Fool	49	(1)
Nightfall	50	(1)
The Four Evangelists	51	(1)
Acalophiles	52	(1)
Silkworm	53	(1)
The Seventeen-Year Locust	54	(1)
Castrato	55	(1)
Pan	56	(1)
Pyramus & Thisbe	57	(1)
Epithalamium	58	(1)
The Business of Angels	59	(1)
Eros	60	(1)
Complicity	61	(1)
May	62	(1)
Lust	63	(1)
When Dusk Weighs Daybreak	64	(1)
Dia de los Muertos	65	(1)
Hydraulics	66	(1)
King of the Hill	67	(1)
Semantics	68	(1)
Genet	69	(1)
Alter Ego	70	(1)
The God of Broken Things	71	(1)
Happenstance	72	(1)
Infanticide	73	(1)
Montage: MTV	74	(1)
Isaac	75	(1)
Or, God in Godzilla	76	(1)
Doctor Feel-Good	77	(1)
Gluttony	78	(1)
Toxic Waste	79	(1)
Shiva	80	(1)
The Dark Lady	81	(1)
Umbra	82	(1)
Vainglory	83	(1)
Succubus	84	(1)
A Small System	85	(1)
Homunculus	86	(1)
Trap	87	(1)
Ecstatic	88	(1)
Stalin	89	(1)
The White Hat	90	(1)
In the Blood	91	(1)
The Procuress (After Honthorst)	92	(1)
Etymology	93	(1)
Speed Ball	94	(1)
A Famous Ghost	95	(1)
A Kind of Xenia	96	(1)
Avarice	97	(1)
August	98	(1)
Devilment	99	(1)
Rollerblades	100	(1)
Monkey Wrench	101	(1)
Meditations on a File	102	(1)
The God of Land Mines	103	(1)
Betrayals	104	(1)
Curator of Kosinski's Mask	105	(1)
Postscript to a Summer Night	106	(1)
September	107	(1)
The God of Variables	108	(1)
Catwalk	109	(1)
Rave	110	(1)
St. Valentine's Day	111	(1)
Curanderismo	112	(1)
Necrophilia	113	(1)
Negative Capability	114	(1)
The Goddess of Quotas	115	(1)
Anger	116	(1)
October	117	(1)
Outside Gethsemane	118	(1)
Philosophers, Incorporated	119	(1)
The Polecat	120	(1)
Crow Lingo	121	(1)
Yesteryear	122	(1)
Meditations on an Olmec Head	123	(1)
The Devil's Workshop	124	(1)
Mud	125	(1)
The God of Variables Laments	126	(1)
Potions	127	(1)
Incubus	128	(1)
Vatsyayana	129	(1)
Euphony	130	(1)
The Goddess of Quotas Laments	131	(1)
November's Nocturne	132	(1)
Ode to the Raccoon	133	(1)
Heresy	134