The Anchorage: Poems [Hardcover]

Mark Wunderlich (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

All That, Stammering
The Anchorage
Aubade
The Bruise Of This
Cease, The Heart Is With Me
Chapel Of The Miraculous Medal
Continent's Edge
Difficult Body
Fourteen Things We're Allowed To Bring To The Underworld
From A Vacant House
Given In Person Only
How I Was Told And Not Told
Hunt
In The Winter Of This Climate
Letter Written To A Verse By Karen Carpenter
The Mare
No Place Like Home
On Opening
One Explanation Of Beauty
Pale Notion
Peonies
Predictions About A Black Car
The Shot; 1929
The Shot; 1932
The Shot; 1993
The Shot; Duluth 1929
Suture
Take Good Care Of Yourself
Thirst
This Heat, These Human Forms
Through An Opening Door
To Sleep In A New City
The Trick
Unmade Bed
Winter Of Heaven, Winter Of Ash; Elegy
Winter Of Heaven, Winter Of Ash; In Brooklyn
Winter Of Heaven, Winter Of Ash; The Dream
Winter Of Heaven, Winter Of Ash; The Visit Home
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

From the Back Cover

"The last time I was so struck as I am now reading Mark Wunderlich's new collection of poems, I was gazing at an immense Greek vase, on whose elegantly fired red and black surface were warriors, at once flaunting and shielding their nakedness, struggling with their fates, or crushed by them in eerily erotic attitudes. The Anchorage bravely takes up the raw mess of desire and pain, the cold ache of longing and loss, and in sleek and searing poems exposes the way we live now to the larger powers of the racing heart and the radiant imagination. This is a scary, sad, ecstatic, astonishing book-and a brilliant debut." (J. D. McClatchy)

"In Mark Wunderlich's lexicon, the body is the anchorage for the soul; it's the place where the soul hooks itself to the only thing that keeps us here, alive. The title poem of this wonderful book begins with an image of a twelfth-century postulant sealed-as a child-in a wall. For nearly a decade her only passageway to the outside world was a small aperture through which she received food and communion.

"The anchor here is many things: Wunderlich's steady and unblinking, wide Midwestern range of memory, now cut by two coasts, imagined, scaffolded, real, held fast, American. The anchor is the body: its rootedness and strength, its injury and vulnerabilities. These are poems provocative and passionate, and muscular in their rigor and form. 'Rapture, sweet release,...something equally consummate and strange.' This is a wondrous first book." (Lucie Brock-Broido)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 57 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Pr; 1ST edition (April 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558492003
• ISBN-13: 978-1558492004
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288,869 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #12 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Gay

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful collection of poems, November 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anchorage: Poems (Hardcover)

I heard so much talk about this book, I didn't know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to find these poems speaking to me in simple but yet intellectual tones. They are easy to read but yet so deep in feeling; depressing at times, but so true to life. Especially "Fourteen Things" which was a deeply personal poem to me. I never expected to read about a personal friend of mine (Ron)in this book by this author. It brought back many wonderful memories of the friendship we shared so many years ago. If you want to read "Poems" that speak to the heart be sure and read this book. Hopefully, we will hear from Mark Wunderlich a lot more in the near future. Looking forward to it.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Striking First Book, October 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anchorage: Poems (Hardcover)

It is fascinating to me to see the number of reviews of this book--obviously Mark Wunderlich has struck a nerve among readers of contemporary poetry. It's also interesting to note how politicized this discussion has become. What hasn't been said here is that these are finely crafted poems that use intense, beautiful language in a new and interesting way, and that give shape to a voice that is fully-formed and authoritative while not retreating from difficult subjects. The writer of these poems has made himself vulnerable, and that is to his credit. This reader will look forward to seeing what Wunderlich does next.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a lyric intelligence rooted in the body, June 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anchorage: Poems (Hardcover)

The tenacity and craftsmanship of Wunderlich's lyricism are new and marvelous -- he is never content to let episode lapse into mere anecdote; neither will he allow the mind to score easy victories over the body and its truths. Wunderlich's technique is to hammer experience into argument -- in doing so, he finds a lyric voice that has the beauty and toughness of worked metal. He manages to forge an excitingly new compromise between mind and body, and between the meditative and confessional traditions. An amazing and revelatory debut.