American Ghost Roses (Illinois Poetry Series) [Paperback]

Kevin Stein (Author)

Book Description

Series: Illinois Poetry Series | Publication Date: April 4, 2005

In his first book as the poet laureate of Illinois, Kevin Stein shoulders an array of poetic forms, blending pathos, humor, and social commentary. These poems - ranging from meditative narratives to improvisational lyrics - explore art's capacity to embody as well as express contemporary culture. Stein embraces subjects as various as his father's death, magazine sex surveys, Kandinsky's theory of art, the dangling modifier, Jimi Hendrix's flaming guitar, racial bigotry, and a teacher's comments on a botched poem. Presiding over this miscellany are ghosts of a peculiarly American garden of dreamers and beloved misfits, those redeemed and those left fingering the locked gate. Kevin Stein is Poet Laureate of Illinois and the Caterpillar Professor of English at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. He is the author of the poetry collections: "A Circus of Want", "Bruised Paradise", and "Chance Ransom", as well as the critical studies "James Wright: The Poetry of a Grown Man", and "Private Poets, Worldly Acts: Public and Private History in Contemporary American Poetry". This is a volume in the "Illinois Poetry Series", edited by Lawrence Lieberman.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Kevin Stein has developed a particularly American late-modern way of fooling around to get at something deep and necessary ('Okay, death can mean being in the wrong place / at the right time, but mostly it's just time'). He has found his own way of exemplifying and confirming Levi-Strauss's notion that artists 'shape the beautiful / and useful out of the dump heap of human life.'" Edward Hirsch, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry and president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation "Never hermetic, Stein is one whose forces do not so much bridge as fuse varieties of cultural experience (high and low, sacred and profane) into union." Donald Revell

Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press (April 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252072405
• ISBN-13: 978-0252072406
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 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: #3,510,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unusual poetry anthology consisting entirely of elegies, April 11, 2005

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Ghost Roses (Illinois Poetry Series) (Paperback)

Poet laureate of Illinois Kevin Stein presents American Ghost Roses, an unusual poetry anthology consisting entirely of elegies. Free verse in a variety of formats mourns the brevity of human life and the death of a father. An honest and upfront approach to grief, these verses stir a resounding chord in the individual reader. Thinking of Kandinsky while Shaving My Father: It pains the back, not to mention the spirit, / to kneel beside one's father limp in his electric lift chair. / Scrape goes the blade, tick the clock whose arms / spin blades pinned at the donkey's tail / heart makes of us. With one deft false move // I could end this, though try that excuse on the cops. / Next his hair cut and shampoo, my day's dirty work / spiraled down the drain. Who's weak now? / For scenes like these, Kandinsky claims / the spirit can be strengthened by exercise. American Ghost Roses is highly recommended as being thoughtful and thought provoking reading.