Curb in Eden: New Version [Paperback]

Joseph A. Enzweiler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 2003

This poem has a long and complex evolutionary history. It has been developing in fits and starts for about a decade, its author's eye always firmly fixed on a clear well defined vision. He recently remarked, "It began during one of those amazing passionate times in my life when the past and the present collide like great movements of water, merging, sweeping me off.". The poem deals with one of the most persistent and important themes of literature: how memories of particular events and people from the past haunt the present and tend to shape a person's daily realities.

An earlier version of A Curb in Eden was published by Salmon Publishing, Ltd in Ireland in 1999 (ISBN 1-897648-49-9), but the the current work has been profoundly revised and rewritten and should be considered as a new book that is derivative from a previously existing work. It is intended as a single poem with a continuous emotional thread divided into named sections and readable in a single sitting. The Salmon edition was of entirely different tone from the current poem, being primarily a past tense document. This current, and we hope final, version is primarily in present tense and presented in a much more direct manner. The Salmon version of the poem has 18 sections and consists of 1097 lines. This new Iris version has only 15 sections, some with different names, but is slightly longer at 1125 lines.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joseph Enzweiler was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1950. He received a degree in Physics from Xavier University there, and moved to Fairbanks, Alaska in 1975. He received a MS in Physics from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and in 1981 built a primitive log house in Goldstream Valley north of town where he has lived ever since. He currently works as a carpenter, stone mason and photographer during the summer and fall months, and spends his winters writing. Every few years he returns to rural northern Kentucky for several months where he lives with his brother and his family, and is building a rock fence around his brother's 3 acres of land. He has published 3 previous books of poetry: Home Country (Fire Weed Press, 1986), Stonework of the Sky (Graywolf Press, 1995) and A Curb in Eden, first version (Salmon Publishing, Ltd, 1999). A fifth book, The Man Who Ordered Perch will be published by Iris Press.

Product Details

• Paperback: 64 pages
• Publisher: Iris Pr; Revised edition (July 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0916078574
• ISBN-13: 978-0916078577
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 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: #2,600,351 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent tribute to a father, January 27, 2004

By 

Julia Nunnally Duncan (Marion, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Curb in Eden: New Version (Paperback)

Enzweiler's new working of his collection is an eloquent and deeply revealing tribute to his father, as attested in his dedication For My Father In All The Cold Houses. The book reveals much about the son--adolescent love lost and pioneer adventure pursued and realized--yet deeply characterizes the father in images, particularly of the man's hands, that can't help but touch the reader. In memory the son observes of his father "How young his hands are";later in life he touches his dead father's folded hands--"those frail enormities"--yet insists "But my father's hand felt solid once." And in the final poem "The Dream House," the speaker avows "I'll be with him soon,/take his workman hands in mine...."

This book is a deeply affirming testament to the lifelong respect a son carries for his father. It is a tribute poetically rendered with honesty and accuracy.