Desire: Poems [Paperback]

Frank Bidart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 30, 1999

Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.

I hate and--love. The sleepless body hammering a nail nails itself, hanging crucified.--from "Catullus: Excrucior" In Frank Bidart's collection of poems, the encounter with desire is the encounter with destiny. The first half contains some of Bidart's most luminous and intimate work-poems about the art of writing, Eros, and the desolations and mirror of history (in a spectacular narrative based on Tacitus). The second half of the book exts the overt lyricism of the opening section into even more ambitious territory-"The Second Hour of the Night" may be Bidart's most profound and complex meditation on the illusion of will, his most seductive dramatic poem to date.

 

Desire is a 1997 National Book Award Finalist for Poetry.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Desire, Frank Bidart's first book since In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965-1990, is in two parts. Part I is a collection of short poems; Part II consists of a single poem, "The Second Hour of the Night," a sequel to "The First Hour of the Night" that ends In the Western Night. Bidart, a poet who makes a large arc between the universal and the idiosyncratic, has learned that the transformations themselves, rendered without comment, have the capacity to chill your blood.

The source for "The Second Hour of the Night" is Ovid's story of Myrrha and her father Cinyras, one of the least-known but most suggestive tales--a reversal of the Oedipus myth. Bidart's tormented dramatization of Ovid's version reads like an investigation into the deepest layers of the story. While both poets turn the doomed heroine into a plant, Bidart looks into causes and motivation in a way that Ovid does not.

The short poems in the first section of Desire are also very strong. The poet, torn apart by the death of his lover, gives you a sense of the distance he has traveled over the past 15 years when he retranslates the two-line poem "Catullus: Excrucior," which he brilliantly adapted in The Sacrifice.

Version in The Sacrifice:

I hate and love. Ignorant fish, who even
wants the fly while writhing.

Version in Desire:

I hate and--love. The sleepless body hammering a nail nails
itself, hanging crucified.

Bidart's acute perception of complicity allows him to do away with the idea of the victim. This is a formidable achievement, and his work is worthy of the scrutiny it demands. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"[Desire] is insightful, disturbing, complex, personal, painstaking, and driven. Almost no poet since Robert Lowell . . . has written verse that so successfully exemplifies these qualities."--Stephen Burt, The New Leader

"Cementing his reputation as a poet of astonishing originality, Bidart revisits classical encounters--the aftermath of a battle described by Tacitus, an incestuous romance in Ovid--and fashions them into a poetic idiom uniquely his own."--David Lehman, People

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Product Details

• Paperback: 84 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (March 30, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374525994
• ISBN-13: 978-0374525996
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #137,388 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Bidart is the greatest living poet, January 1, 2012

By 

AJo94 - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Desire: Poems (Paperback)

Bidart's poetry resonates with painful honesty. He is truly one of the greatest living poets. This is a beautiful collection.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Read Ovid AND Bidart!, February 16, 2001

By 

matthew robinson (UNI, Iowa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Desire: Poems (Paperback)

"The Second Hour of the Night" is probably the best long poem written in English in the past few decades. This book was robbed of the Pulitzer, and is worth buying (or just reading) for it alone. The first half of the book is, honestly, just filler. But the second, final poem makes up for it!

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay, but not worth buying, September 2, 2004

By 

foundpoem - See all my reviews

This review is from: Desire: Poems (Paperback)

-
This is a very short book. I enjoyed some of its first half when I read it. Then, but for two poems, I didn't even care to read the rest more than once. I tried, but it had little to no emotional impact. I love, love, love his interpretation of Catullus's Odi Et Amo -- love it. I'd say it's worth the price of admission, but... there it is right in the book description above, to be easily printed out and saved (and only one version is in this book). I couldn't get into the second half at all, the long (half-book length) poem based on Ovid's work. I liked the idea more than its execution; I was bored.

The book is good; his style is good, but somehow only two poems stuck with me; "Odi Et Amo" (called Catullus: Excrucior here) and the one the other reviewer mentioned, with the line, "I wake and sleep and wake and sleep...." I think reading the same number of poems of his, on the internet, would suffice. If you love the Catulus poem like I do -- in its original, there are other English-speaking poets who've also written interesting interpretations -- I particularly like Ezra Pound's.