Brother Salvage (Pitt Poetry Series) [Paperback]

Rick Hilles (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0822959356 | ISBN-13: 978-0822959359 | Publication Date: September 28, 2006 | Edition: 1

The name of the title poem—“Brother Salvage: a genizah,” provides a skeleton key to unlock the powerful forces that bind Rick Hilles’s collection. A genizah is a depository, or hiding place, for sacred texts. It performs a double function: to keep hallowed objects safe and to prevent more destructive forces from circulating and causing further harm. Brother Salvage serves exactly this purpose. The poems are heartrending and incisive, preserving stories and lives that should not be forgotten. Yet, through the poet’s eloquent craft, painful histories and images are beautifully and luminously contained. Like scholars sifting through ancient genizahs in search of spiritual and historical insights, readers immersed in Brother Salvage will find, at the heart of the book, the most sacred entity: hope.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This reviewer was riveted by the Holocaust poems. It is said that the world must ‘remember’ or ‘never forget.’ How can that effectively prevent anti-Semitism or any other act of mass genocide? When humanity is mentally and emotionally touched to the core with realistic accounts, then perhaps they will be moved to do more than just observe and remark about an experience far beyond their knowledge. ‘Brother Salvage’ does just that.”
--Jewish Book World

"Rick Hilles should be commended for taking on the large and risky task of writing poems on various cultures and their political histories in this book. From the Holocaust to ancient Egyptian mysteries to the work of Paul Eluard, Hilles approaches complex dimensions of history in highly crafted and brilliant poems. He is successful because he gives himself the lyrical room and forms to succeed. Each poem is different, is structured in challenging ways, and resonates with the skill and talent of a young poet coming into his own and bringing the world with him." 
--Bloomsbury Review

”Shows the power of the narrative in poetry to remind us, in concise and elegant language, of our shared humanity. . . . Between Hilles’ mastery of Keats’ ‘negative capability’ and his command of language both elegant yet clear and clean, these poems and their narrators move before the reader’s eyes, engage and entice us to listen to stories that, no matter how large or small, deserve to be heard and treasured.”
--Ohioana Quarterly

From the Back Cover

"In this remarkably fulfilled first book I salute a visionary poet who has eluded the provincialism of our American Narcissus: Hilles has gathered violent glosses and ventriloquial gleams from the ruined scriptures of Europe, reaching as far back as Swedenborg, Novalis, even Catherine Blake, and as far ahead as what I had (wrongly) supposed the sealed echo-chamber of the Holocaust. Hence the sought and granted power of his luminous texts, so reticent yet so generous, their authority proceeding from banked energies of consultation." --Richard Howard

"The poems in Brother Salvage are the traffic between worlds-between past and present, self and other, beauty and horror. These are passionate acts of retrieval-deeply intelligent and superbly graceful, they bring us news of the human wherever it survives, 'alive and at the brink of shattering.'" --Kim Addonizio

"Hilles is a poet very much of our moment, one that does not seem to pass. He reflects a tension between realistic depiction even of atrocity and a countervailing decorum based on a deeply sensitive empathic gift. He thinks himself into others, ordinary folk, or near-mythic figures. His cascading images and brilliant metaphors juxtapose everyday life and the Holocaust with precision as well as pathos. Poetry in his hands is a recording mechanism aware it cannot keep up yet also refusing to overlook 'the smallest thing that ever made you want your life.'" --Geoffrey Hartman

"Brother Salvage faces up to our terrors, as poetry must do, and it has the vigor and daring of language, without which poetry gets nowhere. Hilles realizes extreme states of consciousness, and vividly realizes such common things as a jukebox that 'shoots sparkling pink and green / soda pop through its veins.'" --Richard Wilbur

"At one time poetry was praised for its ability to astonish ordinary people. Then television took over, and poetry became a murmuring monotone from the back row. Now Rick Hilles, in his first book, shows us how even life in our time can be astonished." --Hayden Carruth

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 88 pages
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press; 1 edition (September 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822959356
• ISBN-13: 978-0822959359
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,972,808 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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