An Alchemist With One Eye on Fire [Paperback]

Clayton Eshelman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 12, 2006

Concerning an "Alchemist with One Eye on Fire" Eshleman has written: "I continue to regard poetry as a form in which the realities of the spirit can be tested by critical intelligence, a form in which the blackness of the heart of man can be confronted, in which affirmation is only viable when it survives repeated immersion in negation--in short, a form that can be made responsible for all the poet knows about himself and the world...Unlike poets in China, Iran, and Nigeria, I can still say anything I want to say (for awhile at least). This is not only suspect freedom--it renders my situation absurd. I am like a maniac allowed to wander about screaming 'fire' in a theater of the deaf. Am I a traitor? Certainly not. I am not committed to the overthrow of anyone or anything. I remind myself of a late 19th century alchemist mixing and cooking my potions in a Prague apartment--an alchemist with one eye on fire from what he knows is going on outside his laboratory."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 31 poems in Eshleman's 15th collection embrace the world from multiple perspectives: the earth seen from outer space; details in the watercolors of the artist Mary Heebner; the situation at 4:22 p.m. in Como, Italy, on October 23, 2004. It takes its title from the essay that opens the book, a rambling, at times inspired, often bitter take on the state of contemporary American poetry. Eshleman (see page 39 for his translation of Vallejo) is an exuberant, associative poet: sentences unfold over stanzas, lines spill past the right margin. Political poems take aim at Bush and the inequality of wealth, but also seek pure empathy to "look at something and,/ as we used to say, see it for itself." At his best, Eshleman is capacious and empathic, as in "Combined Object," which imagines his sleeping wife's mind as it makes "its way across the 40,000 mile mid-ocean ridge," carrying "in her trailing skirts,/ a web filled with tiny men, drowned islands, radiolarian ooze." Eshleman's desire to bring diverse disciplines together—prehistoric cave images and menstrual mythology, for instance—can produce enchanting results, making "poetry a space that two people can enter and relate through." He can, however, be as alienating as he is inviting. (Nov.)
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About the Author

Clayton Eshleman is the author of more than 25 books, including 14 collections of poetry. He is the recipient of the National Book Award, the Landon Translation Prize from the Academy of American Poets, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts (and of the Humanities). He is also a masterly translator, especially from the Spanish of Neruda and Vallejo and the French of Artaud and Cesaire. Eshleman's writings and translations have been published in over 500 literary magazines and newspapers through out the world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 114 pages
• Publisher: Black Widow Press (November 12, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976844958
• ISBN-13: 978-0976844952
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 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: #2,015,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars poetic gold from base material, May 12, 2007

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Mr. David Maclagan (UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: An Alchemist With One Eye on Fire (Paperback)

Eshleman uses language in a stunning, inventive way that links todays CBS news with the darkest depths of the psyche. Mind-blowing and unsettling: poetry at its contemporary best!