Codes Appearing: Poems 1979-1988 [Paperback]

Michael Palmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001 | Series: New Directions Paperbook, 914

Codes Appearing combines in a single volume three seminal and long unavailable collections by Michael Palmer. This volume rescues from limbo three of his most beautiful poetry volumes: Notes for Echo Lake, First Figure, and Sun (1981, 1984, 1988). Making available a great deal of Palmer's most influential, exciting, and stunning work, Codes Appearing is a landmark volume. The significance of his writing is every day more recognized. "It is impossible," as The Boston Review noted, "to overstate Palmer's importance." "Michael Palmer,'" as Joshua Clover declared in The Village Voice, "is the most influential avant-gardist working, and perhaps the greatest poet of his generation.... And his books, including the essential '80s triptych of Notes for Echo Lake, First Figure, and Sun, are organized not by story but by a dreamland of calculus and sway....[Palmer's] genius is for making the world strange again."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Codes Appearing: Poems 1979-1988 will appeal to those left unsatisfied by Michael Palmer's The Lion Bridge: Selected Poems 1972-1995. It collects Palmer's three most best-known volumes, all originally from North Point Press: Notes for Echo Lake (1981), First Figure (1984, including "Dearest Reader": "Dearest Reader there were trees/ formed of wire, broad entryways/ beneath balconies beneath spires....") and Sun (1988).

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

(overheard At The) Mayakovsky Station
...by The Name Of Ceran
Ab Urbe Condita
All Those Words We Once Used For Things
Alogon
As A Real House
At The Table We Say
Barely Anything To Say...
A Book Of
Book Of The Yellow Castle
Called Poem Of The End
Carnival, And The Odd Light...
The Comet
Dead Season
Dear Lexicon, I Died In You
Dear M
Dear M
Dear M
Dearest Reader
Desire Was A Quotation From Someone
Documentation
A Dream Called The House Of Jews
Echo
Echo
Echo
Facades For Norma Cole
False Portrait
False Portrait Of D.b. As Niccolo Paganini
False Portrait Of Hanna H
Fifth Prose
First Figure
The Flower Of Capital
For Paolo And Andy
Fractal Song
French For April Fool's
A Headless Man Walks, Lives
Here The Image Of A Child On A Hill
A Hundred Years Ago I Made A Book
I Am An Architect In Vienna
I Have Answers To All...
I Killed A Bee On The Street Of Scissors
I Was Talking To The Baroness
Ideas Aren't Worth Anything
Idem 1
Idem 2
Idem 3
Idem 4
Left Unfinished Sixteen Times
Lens
Lies Of The Poem
A Man Undergoes Pain Sitting At A Piano
Maria's Gift
Mei-mei, Here Is The Table
Multiples
Music Rewritten
Music By David Hume
Musica Ficta
The Night Sky
No Page (unturned)
Notes For Echo Lake: 1
Notes For Echo Lake: 10
Notes For Echo Lake: 11
Notes For Echo Lake: 12
Notes For Echo Lake: 2
Notes For Echo Lake: 3
Notes For Echo Lake: 4
Notes For Echo Lake: 5
Notes For Echo Lake: 6
Notes For Echo Lake: 7
Notes For Echo Lake: 8
Notes For Echo Lake: 9
November Talks
Nowness And Nowness Sings The Crow
Of This Cloth Doll Which (sarah's Fourth)
The Opening Is Read By The Tongue
The Painted Cup
Paper Universe Of Primes
Poem
Poem In Two Parts
Portrait Now Before Then
Pre-petrarchan Sonnet
Prelude
The Project Of Linear Inquiry
Purples Of Barley
Said The Speaker
Said The Speaker
The Secret Remains In The Book
Seven Forbidden Words
Seven Lines Of Equal Length
She Says, Into The Dark-
She Says, You Are The Negative-
Sign
Six Illustrations: 1. Little Fires
Six Illustrations: 2. Carluccio
Six Illustrations: 3. Atlantic Window
Six Illustrations: 4. The Question
Six Illustrations: 5. Scene Including
Six Illustrations: 6. The Question
So The Dark Figure
So With His Daughter Antigone
Song Of The Round Man
A Souvenir Of Japan
Sun (2)
Symmetrical Poem
Symmetrical Poem: They Were Afraid Of Death
Thee Thou On Looking Out
The Theory Of The Flower
There Are Pieces Of The Lake
There Is Much That Is Precise
This Time
Through Time
To Robert E. Symmes 1933 For A Gift Of Resemblances
Untitled
View From An Apartment
The Village Of Reason
Voice And Address
We Will Call Today
A Word Is Coming Up...
Words Say, Misspell And Misspell Your Name
Yes In A Circle
You Say
You, Island In This Page
You, Island In This Page
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

One of America's most important poets...startlingly lyrical and visceral. -- Harvard Review

Palmer is one of the most important poets in terms of...political or aesthetic implications. -- Leonard Schwartz, Poetry Project Newsletter, December 2004/January 2005

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Product Details

• Paperback: 254 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811214702
• ISBN-13: 978-0811214704
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #706,163 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Palmer book to own, February 19, 2006

By 

Eric Unger "mild-mannered miscreant" (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Codes Appearing: Poems 1979-1988 (Paperback)

I won't try to sum up in a pithy review the scope and content of this collection, just to say that it is strange, lyrical, and searching. You get a sense that the writer is taking nothing for granted, down to the letter. He expresses a sincere desire to find meaning in the world. There is doubt and dismay throughout, but in the end the lingering feeling is one of hope. Collects three of his most important books in one volume. Recommended.