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The Blessing: New & Selected Poems
 
 
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The Blessing: New & Selected Poems [Paperback]

Richard Jones (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Book Description

April 1, 2000
Gathering over one hundred previously uncollected and new poems, together with four previous books, The Blessing provides a necessary overview of a surprising and deceptively accessible poet.

"Skillful, direct, and surprisingly delicate."-The Village Voice

Richard Jones was born in London and educated at the University of Virginia. His first book of poetry, Country of Air (Copper Canyon Press, 1986), won the Posner Award from the Council for Wisconsin Writers. He published At Last We Enter Paradise in 1991 and Perfect Time in 1994.

Jones has edited Poetry East since 1979 and has edited two critical anthologies Poetry and Politics and Of Solitude and Silence: Writings on Robert Bly. He is a professor at DePaul University in Chicago.


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Editorial Reviews

Review

The Abandoned Garden
The Abandoned House
After Making Love, I Tell A Ghost Story
After The Divorce (2)
After The Storm
After Work
Alienated (2)
Along The Path
The Amputee
And The Word
Andrew
Apology To Andrew
Are There Poems You Won't Publish?
The Artist
The Asylum
Athens Airport
Back Then
The Bedroom
The Beginning
A Beginning
The Bell
Besides Books, What Do You Collect?
The Birds
The Black Hat
Blackdog's Ashes
Blackout
The Blacksnake
Boots
Boundaries
A Boy's Body
Bread Crumbs
The Broken Bowl
The Button
The Catcher's Mask
Cathedral
The Cave
The Ceiling Fan
Certain People
Child In Woods
Cloudburst
The Color Of Grief
Comment On This: In The Real Scheme Of Things, Poetry Is Marginal
Compassion
Could You Talk About The Tension Between The Concrete And The
Craziness
The Cripple
Dancing
The Danger Of Escaping
The Daughter
The Dead Calf
The Decoy
Desire
The Desk
Devil's Quarry
Discuss Your Childhood Experience With Language: 1. Mother
The Distance
Do You Let Go Of A Poem After It Is Published?
Do You Perceive A Difference Between Male And Female Writers
The Doghouse
Double Doors
Drinking With My Mother And Father
Early Life
Easter
The Edge
'elegy'
The Empty Room
The Examination
The Execution
Faith
Family
Father's Day
The Fear
The Fence Painter
The Fire
Fishing
Flying
For My Sister
The Fox
The Freight
The Game
The Gift
The Gift
Girl With Skateboard
God
Golf Towels
Grief, 1942
Has Teaching Affected Your Love Of Poetry?
Have You Written Much Prose?
The Hearing Aid
The Helicopter Pilot
The Hermit
Home
The Horses
House By The Ocean
How Did You Meet Your Wife?
How Do You Begin A Poem?
How Do You Situate Yourself Regarding Narrative And Lyric Poetry?
How Old Were You When You Wrote Your First Poem?
How Would You Like To Be Remembered?
Ice: 1. The Gift
Ice: 2. Climbing
Ice: 3. The Window
The Idle Fleet
If I Should Die
If You Could No Longer Write, How Would You Express Yourself
The Impossible
In Planning A Manuscript How Do You Lay Out The Arc?
Indolence
The Insects
The Invalid
Is Poetry Autobiographical?
The Island
The Keats House
The Key
The Lake
Lanterns
Leaving Los Angeles At Last
Leaving Town After The Funeral
The Letter
Letter Of Recommendation From My Father To My Future Wife
Life After Death
A Light Rain
Listening
The Loft
Looking At My Father
Love
Love For The Bottle
The Lullaby
The Mechanic
The Miscarriage
Mortification Of The Flesh
The Mother's Song
Moving Day
Mrs. Green
My Father's Buddha
My Friends
My Painting
My Sister's Garden
The Mystery
New Year's Eve
Ninety-year-old Man
Noon
A Note About The Author
The Novel
On Suffering
On The Way To The Museum
The Oriental Carpet
The Owl
The Painting
Painting William's Room
Paradise Lost
Paris: 1. The Poem
Paris: 2. The Answer
Paris: 3. The Question
Passion
The Piano
Pirandello's Shirt
The Plum Trees
The Poet's Heart
The Poet's Mother
Portrait Of My Father And His Grandson
Prayer
The Punishment
Rain
Rapture
Reading With A Hangover
The Remedy
Rented Room, Second Floor
Rest
The Revelation
Riding The Train
The Rights Of Man
The Road
The Rock
The Roman
The Ruined Church
Sacrifices
Scars
The Scream
The Seal
The Sermon
The Shadow
Sicily
The Siesta
The Soldier
The Solipsist's Self-portraits: 1. The Bed
The Solipsist's Self-portraits: 2. Portrait Of A Man Walking
The Solipsist's Self-portraits: 3. The Lie
Son
Song Of The Old Man (2)
The Spiders
The Storm
A Suicide
The Suit
Summer
Sunday Night
The Sweater
T.s. Eliot Said Something To This Effect: 'steal From The Best.' ...
Talk About Audience
The Temple
The Test
Thanksgiving
Things
Thirteen
Times Like This
To My Student's Father
Today I Saw My Child
Tree
Triolet
Twelve-year-old Drunk
Two Years After A Death
The Umbrella
A Vision
The Visit
The Voice
Waiting
The Waiting Room
Wan Chu's Wife In Bed
Water
The Wedding Party
The Weight
What Are You Not Telling Us?
What Do You Do About Dry Periods In Your Writing?
What Do You Do For Exercise?
What Do You Do To Get Away?
What Do You Do When You Say 'to Hell With It' And Leave Your Work?
What Do You Like Musically?
What Do You Think Of Computers?
What Do You Think Of The Future?
What Do You Think Of Workshops?
What Effect Has Your New Son Had On Your Writing Life?
What Else Would You Like To Be?
What Gives You Hope?
What Has Writing In Common With Dance?
What Have You Bought Lately?
What Is The Most Foolish Question You Have Ever Been Asked?
What Is Your Favorite Body Part?
What Is Your Favorite Color?
What Is Your Favorite Drink?
What Is Your House Like?
What Is Your Worst Fear?
What Major Shifts Have Occurred In Your Work?
Where Did You Get The Leather Bag You Carry To Your Poetry Readings?
Where, When, And How Do You Write?
Which Of Superman's Powers Would You Pick For Your Own?
The White Star Of Hope
White Towels
Who Is Your Muse?
Who Will People Read In 100 Years?
Why Do Poets Write?
Why Do You Read?
The Widower
Wild Guesses
Wings
The Wounded One
You Paint. What Have You Been Working On Recently?
Young Woman, Paris, 1948
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Richard Jones is the author of ten books of poetry and criticism and editor of Poetry East. He teaches at DePaul University in Chicago.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Copper Canyon Press (April 1, 2000)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1556591438
  • ISBN-13: 978-1556591433
  • Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,019,893 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a Blessing, July 5, 2000
THE BLESSING, by Richard Jones, is truly a blessing for those of us who read poetry to be touched. Jones is a lyric poet who speaks from and to the heart in poems of love and grief and endless wonder. This directness is countered by persona poems, character sketches and portraits, and wildly imaginative narratives, all of which still go to the heart of something wondrous or mysterious about the world and, especially, the human spirit.

THE BLESSING collects Jones's earlier books, COUNTRY OF AIR, AT LAST WE ENTER PARADISE, and A PERFECT TIME, as well as many new and previously uncollected poems. It also contains 48 QUESTIONS, a delightfully indirect set of a sonnet-like answers to an interviewer's questions, excerpts of which aired on NPR. Jones teaches English and creative writing at DePaul University in Chicago, where he also edits the independent poetry journal, POETRY EAST, which moved to the midwest with him from the east and which is soon to have a new incarnation as POETRY EAST OF EDEN.

My college students respond particularly well to Jones's moving accounts of the death of his nephew Andrew, in poems that teach us not only the reality of loss but the miracle of acceptance. (If you like these, you will also like THE ANDREW POEMS, by Shelly Wagner, Jones's sister, also available at amazon.com.) My students also appreciate Jones's straight-on look at dysfunctional family life (redeemed by love), youthful alcoholism, and alienation. The marvelous thing is that Jones's poems do not judge--they simply recreate or reveal the range of human feelings. And very often these poems guide us back from the depths of suffering to a transformed state. In his own words: "Do you know what I think, / drifting off toward dawn? / If, in the garden of the world, / there's such a thing as suffering, / I have never suffered."

While I have had great success teaching these emotionally accessible poems, I also turn to THE BLESSING for private pleasure, seeking wisdom, delight, redemptive tears, miracle. The poems in THE BLESSING describe an arc. They move from sorrow to acceptance, from the visible to the invisible and back, from seeking to finding peace in the world we are given to live in and discover as a paradise, after all.

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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Insightfully candid and supremely accessible poetry., August 7, 2000
The Blessing gathers under one cover Richard Jones' insightfully candid and supremely accessible poetry providing a comprehensive overview survey of this superb and uniquely talented poet. Things: I got to a dimly lit secondhand store/to lift empty champagne glasses/and open dusty drawers./I buy the broken chair/and dedicate myself/to its new life./I leave with the chipped vase,/the cracked violin, the yellowed lace.//I go to bright department stores/where aisles of merchandise/sing their songs/beneath fluorescent lights --/ desks, sofas, picture frames,/asking for a reason to exist,/demanding our secrets, our love,/every thing demanding/everything of my life.
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5.0 out of 5 stars One of the truly great contemporary American poets, September 5, 2010
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This review is from: The Blessing: New & Selected Poems (Paperback)
I love the work of Richard Jones so much that I used a portion of his piece "White Towel" in my upcoming book "More than a Memory." Jones' work relies on observation and well placed words over pretense. If you enjoy good poetry, you will treasure "The Blessing" by Richard Jones.
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