Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934-1994 (Wesleyan Poetry Series) [Paperback]

David Ignatow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1994 | Series: Wesleyan Poetry Series

For over half a century, David Ignatow has crafted spare, plain, haunting poetry pf working life, urban images, and dark humor. The poetic heir of Whitman and William Carlos Williams, Ignatow is characteristically concerned with human mortality and human alienation in the world: the world as it is, defined by suffering and despair, yet at crucial times redeemed by cosmic vision and shared lives. His development as a poet is chronicled in Against the Evidence, title of the poem in part quoted above and meant by Ignatow as the metaphor for the whole body of his work.

Where his previous collections have been organized thematically, Ignatow here arranges his poems "according to the decade in which they were written...returning each to its chronological order." Against the Evidence charts the evolution of his themes from the earliest origin in the Thirties to their present extraordinary manifestation in a variety of poetic forms and modes.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Ignatow gathers his poetic career in this collection. He portrays metaphorically the themes of death and isolation, which dominate the volume, through trees, rocks, and clouds. These metaphors suggest that the speaker is enclosed or rooted in the self, alienated from the world. In the early poems, Ignatow uses cheap rhetoric that leads us to pseudoprofound conclusions. How ever, the later poems (dating from the Seventies to the present) retain the themes of death and isolation but are more subtle and lucid; these poems reveal Ignatow's poetic genius. Because the speaker has grown comfortable with himself and enjoys being alone, we revel in the emotional impact of the poems and can "look forward to tomorrow." We can identify with Ignatow when he says "one leaf left/ on a branch and no unhappiness." Against the Evidence shows Ignatow's poetic development and maturity, making this an essential addition to most collections.
- Tim Gavin, The Episcopal Acad., Merion, Pa.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Ignatow publishes his selection from 60 years work upon his eightieth birthday, February 7, explaining that while he changed styles in midcareer, his themes remained the same. He sees that change as one from realism to surrealism, from waking observation to dreaming. The reader may see it as one from the short-lined free verse of the poems from the 1930s through the 1960s to the prose poetry Ignatow adopted in the 1970s and has used about equally ever since. The themes--the wonders, difficulties, and pains of living fully in the world--have indeed not changed. But the change from free verse to prose poetry has affected the cogency of individual poems. In his early poems, Ignatow is reliably personable, real, individuated, although notably self-absorbed--and a definite New Yorker during a time when that city most closely approximated a microcosm of modern Western society; he recalls most forcibly his contemporary engaged poet of the city, Paul Goodman, although Ignatow's not as eccentric. The later work is too often diffuse and, especially in the prose poems, sentimental, even bathetic: New Ageish. One wishes Ignatow had either included more early work or deleted more recent stuff. Ray Olson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan; 1st edition (January 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819512141
• ISBN-13: 978-0819512147
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,654,465 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unsung hero of modern poetry, September 21, 2006

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Sally Reardon "waterhousesmuse" (NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934-1994 (Wesleyan Poetry Series) (Paperback)

It is difficult to articulate the beauty of David Ignatow's poetry. Readers that find themselves running between the romanticisism and stark realism at a steady pace will find themselves quite at home in Ignatow's stark, moving style. For my part, Ignatow quickly became a favorite of mine, utterly altering my perspective on the possible success of modern poetry. This is his finest compilation.