Ron Silliman writes a very thought-provoking and complimentary review of Laurel Blossom's Degrees of Latitude on his blog today. Describing it as "completely persuasive" he writes "This is not the language of lyric verse, nor of the particular sort of Quietist confessionalism one might associate, say, with Carolyn Forché or Jane Miller, both of whom blurbed this book. There is a grit to these descriptions."
Ron Silliman has been writing an interesting series of posts on the William Carlos Williams award, which he judged this year, and which brought Degrees of Latitude to his attention. While it didn't win the award, it was one of a handful of books that particularly caught Silliman's attention and he feels deserves awards.
There's a link to the review on Ron's blog.
You can buy Degrees of Latitude at the Four Way Books website where all our titles are available at a 32% discount. You'll be supporting independent publishing AND saving yourself money!
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
NYer reviews Kevin Prufer
This week's New Yorker includes Kevin Prufer's latest book in its Briefly Noted section, 4/28/08:
"The America of Prufer’s fourth collection is an empire in decline, a medicated landscape (“snow / like little tranquilizers all over the yard”) peopled by pilgrims to shopping malls. The book opens with a panoramic vision of the aftermath of apocalypse—“expired” cars, silenced TVs, coffins “unmoored and happy with the storm”—but ends intimately, with a child’s memory of his first encounter with death; the thin wire between political failure and personal grief runs taut throughout. In the eerie centerpiece poem, the suburbs are sealed under an enormous parachute, its nylon shimmering; icicles line the seams and crash into the streets, and the narrator walks for days, never finding the edge."
Congratulations, Kevin!
Kevin also received a wonderful review from Robert C. Jones in the Kansas City Star which syndicated to a dozen other papers across the United States, including the Miami Herald .
Of National Anthem , Marie Howe has written “From within the American Empire, [Prufer] is listening to the memory of the future. . . Can this be a poet who can writes the sentence we are, as a people, on the verge of saying?”
National Anthem is available directly from Four Way Books at a 32% discount. Order it, and all our other titles, here
"The America of Prufer’s fourth collection is an empire in decline, a medicated landscape (“snow / like little tranquilizers all over the yard”) peopled by pilgrims to shopping malls. The book opens with a panoramic vision of the aftermath of apocalypse—“expired” cars, silenced TVs, coffins “unmoored and happy with the storm”—but ends intimately, with a child’s memory of his first encounter with death; the thin wire between political failure and personal grief runs taut throughout. In the eerie centerpiece poem, the suburbs are sealed under an enormous parachute, its nylon shimmering; icicles line the seams and crash into the streets, and the narrator walks for days, never finding the edge."
Congratulations, Kevin!
Kevin also received a wonderful review from Robert C. Jones in the Kansas City Star which syndicated to a dozen other papers across the United States, including the Miami Herald .
Of National Anthem , Marie Howe has written “From within the American Empire, [Prufer] is listening to the memory of the future. . . Can this be a poet who can writes the sentence we are, as a people, on the verge of saying?”
National Anthem is available directly from Four Way Books at a 32% discount. Order it, and all our other titles, here
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