William Henry Harrison And Other Poems

by Slavitt, David R.

• ISBN13: 9780807131213
• ISBN10: 0807131210
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-03-16
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

Summary

"A wonderfully disorienting title for a wonderfully orienting book. Deeply instructive, entirely delightful."-Henry Taylor The prodigiously imaginative mind and penetrating wit of David R. Slavitt are on full display in his newest collection of poetry that is perhaps his most engaging to date. The title poem begins by fooling around-"With three names like that, it sounds as though his mother is calling him and she's really angry"-but then builds into a shrewd, thoughtful account of the life of the ninth U.S. president. A second long poem offers a fresh and very amusing appraisal of the practice of buying, writing, and sending souvenir postcards. In between this pair, there are shorter pieces impressive in their range and tone and theme (be sure to read "Poem without Even One Word") that dazzle in an already glittering body of work. Slavitt's poems can be playful, even silly, and then astonishingly convert levity into earnest urgency. Dark lines glint with the light of intelligence and mirth, even as artful puns and jokes reveal a rueful aspect. The poet gets older but his work is as graceful as ever, the lovable little boy signaling from inside the sometimes-cranky septuagenarian.

Table of Contents

William Henry Harrison	1	(12)
El Adon: A Piyyut	13	(1)
A Fable of Odo of Cheriton	14	(2)
Poetry Reading	16	(1)
Anti-poem	17	(1)
Fritillaries	18	(2)
The Fire Eater: A Roundel	20	(1)
Doodling	21	(1)
The Duke of Gornisht-Helfen	22	(3)
Rondeau	25	(1)
A Cat's Life	26	(1)
Suits	27	(1)
In the Playground	28	(1)
When in Rome	29	(1)
Panic Attack	30	(3)
Parmenion: On the Epigram	33	(1)
Flyover Country	34	(1)
Ctimene	35	(1)
Stress	36	(1)
Birthday Poems	37	(1)
Chicago Art Institute, after Lunch	38	(1)
Primary Grades	39	(1)
Collected Poems	40	(1)
Monticore	41	(1)
Attention	42	(1)
Bus	43	(1)
The Ghost in the Corner	44	(1)
Santa Clara Pot	45	(1)
On Circe's Island	46	(2)
Adventure	48	(1)
Complexity	49	(1)
Scab	50	(1)
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Robert Lowell	51	(5)
One-Word Poem	56	(2)
Poem without Even One Word	58	(3)
French Postcards	61