Babylon in a Jar: New Poems (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "I couldn't stand still watching them forever,..." (more)
Key Phrases: Book of Wonders, Tommy Posey

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Casting a bemused eye on both ordinary and extraordinary experience, the poet of this fifth collection reports his discoveries in poems brimming with charm?and rigorous technique. Throughout, expressive line breaks and syntax combine with an everyday vocabulary to create a tone that beckons and disarms. One never struggles or puzzles over a Hudgins poem, but instead chuckles at the quandary of housekeys snagged on a power line ("Keys"), contemplates a neighbor's tree festooned with bottle glass ("The Bottle Tree") or reflects on the murder of a kindly jeweler ("How to Stop"). Unfortunately, even Hudgins's technical virtuosity cannot offset the colorlessness of his language, resulting in few lines or poems that resonate in a reader's memory. Too often Hudgins's subjects and treatment of them lack emotional urgency, lapsing into wordy narratives and descriptions, or merely interesting epiphanies. (A poem that begins crisply with the narrator saving the accidentally spilled ashes of a girl he once "flirted with/ ungracefully a time or two" ends with him disposing of them because "they are sheer dust/ and should be honored as the dust they are.") Some readers might detect a philosophical subtlety beneath these casual surfaces, only to be dropped back into formulaic confessional narrative by the end of the poem. One closes the book feeling entertained?often wonderfully so?but unmoved, unchanged.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Often flowing over the page in a sort of loose latticework of words, Hudgins's poems give an immediate sense of energy and freedom. There are little edges of violence throughoutAa copperhead strikes the poet's boot, even daffodils don't spring but eruptAand a sense of spinning just on the edge. But the poet is in control, bringing us back to safety: "before he flooded the rubble, he swept up the dust of Babylon/ to give as presents, and he stored it in a jar." Just be careful about opening the lid.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 72 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (August 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395909945
• ISBN-13: 978-0395909942
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,450,102 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Babylon In A Jar, January 13, 2000

By	Martin Kim "[e-mail]" (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews

"After Muscling through sharp greenery and after lopping humped limbs back as far as lopping shears would take them"

So begins a poem in Babylon In A Jar who's structure and form evokes the mythic narrative quality of the best of Gary Snyder married to the intuitive grasp of rhythm that Dylan Thomas wrote in so well. Hudgins speaks in a common language rich in metaphor of simple moments in life, yet without wallowing in the sentimental.

This is by the far the strongest single voice in poetry to write consistently well - poem after poem, book after book, within the past decade. I checked out five of his titles from the library and opened each at random without disappointment. Nothing good said of this writer should be taken for hyperbole. Babylon In A Jar is among his best.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant book encompassing the verities of the heart., December 2, 1998

By A Customer

Each of Andrew Hudgins' books makes one hunger for the next. His work is brilliant, true, and beautifully accessible.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Andrew Hudgins - A Delightful collection of poems, August 22, 2002

By	Jeannine Hall Gailey (Northern CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Babylon in a Jar: Poems (Paperback)

I have read and re-read this book and always find something new to love. Andrew's narrative southern voice is at once humorous and true. Although his poetry is usually written in playful formalism, there is a bit more of the lyric in this book. His fusion of the divine and the earthy here is particularly effective.