The Burning of Troy was catalyzed by the rapid death of Richard Foerster’s partner of fifteen years. However, Foerster’s lines are less a private testament of loss and grief than the universal voicing of a lover’s confrontation with mortality. To connect to this universal experience, Foerster consciously employs various distancing devices, voices, and mythic allusions. And, as always in his poetry, there is an attention to the natural world with its hidden symbolic and metaphysical resonances.
Book Description
The Burning of Troy was catalyzed by the rapid death of Richard Foerster’s partner of fifteen years. However, Foerster’s lines are less a private testament of loss and grief than the universal voicing of a lover’s confrontation with mortality. To connect to this universal experience, Foerster consciously employs various distancing devices, voices, and mythic allusions. And, as always in his poetry, there is an attention to the natural world with its hidden symbolic and metaphysical resonances.
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Perhaps best known as the longtime editor for the literary journal Chelsea, Foerster (Double Going, 2002) has also proven himself as an author of vivid, articulate, lyrical and descriptive verse. This fifth collection begins by addressing the death of the poet's partner, first with pained, realistic poems about his illness, then with self-conscious, classical pastoral elegy: "Sarcophagus of morning: marbleized air; apples studding the abandoned orchard: same/ torch song year after year." From his "narrow grief" and "bitter pity," Foerster then looks back with pithy detail at his Catholic school boyhood in the '60s: readers who share the background will wince in empathy. Much of the rest of the volume comprises elaborate, finely crafted if perhaps too impersonal poems on European and Australian tourist subjects, including a long series about Australian animals, birds and plants: "Hang gliders soar on radiant thermals/ in the easing August light of Mont Ste-Victoire," while the satin bowerbird "entice[s] the demurely dull// green bowerhens/ to his violaceous eyes." (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Richard Foerster is author of four poetry collections including Trillium (BOA, 1998) and Double Going (BOA, 2002) which was named a 2002 notable book by the National Book Critics Circle. He has received numerous awards, including the Discovery/The Nation Award, Poetry magazine's Bess Hokin Prize; and residency fellowships from Yaddo, National Endowment for the Arts, and, Maine Arts
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
stunning elegance, raw human vulnerability,
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This review is from: The Burning of Troy (American Poets Continuum) (Paperback)
I can easily imagine two inappropriate responses to this new collection of poetry by Richard Foerster: first, the classical illusion in the title might put some readers off as a suggestion of historical abstraction and academic stuffiness. Second, there are the distinterested blurbs that describe it as a book of poems on grief and loss; and potential readers might put it aside, after mentally insereting "yet another" before "book of poems on grief and loss." BUT THEY COULDN'T MAKE A BIGGER MISTAKE. Three events happened in the poet's life nearly simultaneously: the loss of his partner of 15 years, the winning of a large travel grant which he parlayed into a world tour and, on his return, 9/11. This strong, affecting volume of mostly one-page lyrics marries the best of an appreciation for the poets and poetry that have gone before us, and Richard Foerster's responsibility to speak to himself and his contemporaries openly and honestly on the role of private grief in the context of pulbic tragedy. By striking that flint on this steel, Foerster creates line after line that I wish I had committed to memory, both for their stunning elegance and for their raw, human vulnerability. Richard Foerster writes strong poetry. Poets should read Foerster's book because he reminds us that the task before us is doable if we work steadily and hard at it; lovers of poetry should read his book because it will inspire them with the knowledge that good English poetry is not the exclusive possession of the Elizabethans and the Victorians. Yes, there are great poets writing now. BOA publishes many of them. This 100th volume in the BOA series is a perfect example.
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