Beautiful Wreckage: New & Selected poems [Paperback]

W. D. Ehrhart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 1999

Poetry. 30 years of work from 12 collections. BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE includes early poems never before collected along with 24 new poems. A hunger for honesty and a charged lyricism have always made Bill Ehrhart's poetry remarkably his own. Though he's best known for his Vietnam War poems, his BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE: NEW & SELECTED POEMS includes many lovely poems not about Vietnam. This book deserves serious recognition -- John Balaban. W. D. Ehrhart, a Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War, is author or editor of sixteen previous books. MOSTLY NOTHING HAPPENS, DISTANCE WE TRAVEL and OUTER BANKS (all Adastra) are carried by SPD.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A hunger for honesty and a charged lyricism have always made Bill Ehrhart's poetry remarkably his own. Though he's best known for his Vietnam War poems, his BEAUTIFUL WRECKAGE: NEW & SELECTED POEMS includes many lovely poems not about Vietnam. This book deserves serious recognition" -- John Balaban

"Anyone who can read this book without tears would be well-advised to go back and learn again how to read, and how to llive." -- Philip Appleman

"The clarity of vision and depth of feelings in these pages will enhance Bill Ehrhart's standing as a major voice of his generation." -- Daniel Hoffman

About the Author

W.D. Ehrhart has published over a dozen books of poetry and prose and also edited several anthologies. He has received awards and fellowships from the Pew Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts and others.He is a research fellow in American Studies at the University of Wales, Swansea, UK. He lives in Philadelphia.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 237 pages
• Publisher: Adastra Press; 1 edition (November 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0938566822
• ISBN-13: 978-0938566823
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,463,182 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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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 Utterly Honest, Startlingly Graceful, Potently Poignant, November 18, 1999

By 

David Kleist - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beautiful Wreckage: New & Selected poems (Paperback)

The poetry of W.D. Ehrhart is chiselled from the granite of raw experience. He closes his eyes to nothing, and his honesty carves verse which is spare and direct yet elegant-also often melodic and lyrical. His words pierce the heart like a steel-tipped arrow. Although best known for his meditations on and recollections of the war in Vietnam, here we experience a full range of life: his first French kiss; his dropping off of his daughter at school; his jogging through Chicago and Philadelphia; his cats; his hopes, his fears, and his joys. Ehrhart's words haunt. They reverberate in one's brain and invite rereading. Don't miss this retrospective of a voice pure as a midnight cry of love and pain.

5.0 out of 5 stars The bruise to the heart, October 25, 2004

By 

Charles J. Marr (Cambridge Springs, Pa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Beautiful Wreckage: New & Selected poems (Paperback)

All these years after Vietnam Ehrhart cannot let go. Yes he goes other places: love of wife and child, memories of childhood friends and the ever unresolved situation with parents. Work, and lack of it, career and setbacks are here too, also the awareness of age as friends suffer heart attacks, as the sense of "last time" invades visits, as old places of the heart vanish. All of it presented with Erhart's deceptive simplicity, his matter of fact voice. But Vietnam, oh Vietnam. He sucks the broken tooth of remorse. Reveals the horror lurking outside the circle of his personal fire. Suddenly it reaches in, a paw touching the present: Guatamala, Bagdad, or just a street corner in Philadelphia. And he condemns it looking, hoping for justice, like a child who has been told that last lie which reveals truth. He eschews excuse for himself as an adult who could have said that one soothing word that can no longer be said. One who looks upon his thoughtless childhood cruelties and rues. He cannot help touching the sore spot. He cannot forgive himself, even though others forgive him. And so for any reader swimming along in the poetic mind this is an examination of conscience.

Ehrhart is not an academic poet, nor does his skill sparkle. Not as given to delicate images as fellow Vietnam poet Balaban, he nevertheless has some interesting pieces of wordwork in this anthology of often narrative lyrics. His diction is the diction of polite discourse. His familiarity with traditional poetry shows at times in congruent images and themes. For me, this is the work of an authentic poet. It shows why we need poetry.