The Charge (Paperback)

~ Patrick Donnelly (Author) "How is it sometimes a black shape,..." (more)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The clear accessibility of his writing immediately invites the reader inside his world." -- Iron Horse Literary Review

"The mingling of lover/brother/life/death in this collection is scented with humor as well as sweat." -- Kingdom Books, July 14, 2008

...he instructs us to take what we need to live our lives a little better, whatever that might be. -- The Saint Ann's Review,Winter/Spring 2004

...wry, impulsive, rakish and personable, offering us snippets of city life that overflow with longing, vitality and pain. -- A Journal of Contemporary Poetry, October 2004

It's grand to find a writer who can speak about the riddles of life that transcend political and social boundaries. -- Animus, 2004

Such complete nuanced rendering of the many emotional connections we can have to a place...is a rare achievement. -- Lambda Book Report, February 2004

This harrowing distinction indeed defines our plight, at any stage of our lives. -- Antioch Review, Winter 2005

Product Description

Of this book, Gregory Orr has written:

"Patrick Donnelly's amazing book 'The Charge' has something to do with electricity, with the intensity of lucid, urgent speech lighting up parts of our hearts and brains as poems are supposed to do, but it also has to do with a charge Donnelly has been given: a spiritual mission. This charge is to bear testimony to the realities, tensions, and intensitities of living in his particular world and knowing that world must be transformed in order to reveal its spiritual significance. He reminds me, in this project, of Whitman, another passionate denizen of the Brooklyn that Donnelly hymns and inhabits. Donnelly has Whitman's tenderness and that empathy for others Whitman counseled us to cherish as intensely as we cherished our carnal self-delight. I hear, throughout these poems, the gospels of passion and compassion. I hear an erotic humor Whitman would have aspired to had he been as free in body as he was in spirit. Donnelly writes of Eros and AIDS, grief and rage --and everything he writes is suffused with tenderness and intelligence, lucidity and courage. It is a book full of psalms of gratitude, and it is also a book bursting with prayers, many of them anguished. Are they answered? They are, as the best poems must be, their own answer, the answer of love."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: Ausable Press (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931337063
• ISBN-13: 978-1931337069
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,151,068 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So Wonderful!, June 24, 2004

By	Lilah Hegnauer (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

I loved this book - his rhythms are always delightfully precise, the language moves freely from one image to the next, the ideas are so complex and willing to become unsettled and unsolved in both the poet's mind and the reader's. Reading the poems aloud is also a great experience - so rich.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Collection, November 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Charge (Hardcover)

This is simply a wonderful collection of poetry: well-written, engaging, thoughtful, even touching, at times. So much of Contemporary American Poetry, especially among the younger poets, is glib, sardonic, dull. How wonderful to find poetry like this. This is certainly one of the best first book of poems published this year.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting and Precise, March 11, 2004

By	A.M. Parker "amparker7" (Davidson, NC) - See all my reviews

After encountering work on Poetry Daily, I looked forward to the collection; it has met my expectations, which were high. This is a good book--one that moves freely through its various sadnesses with great precision and rigor. A strong first collection.