Erasures (Wesleyan Poetry Series) [Paperback]

Donald Revell (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0819512060 | ISBN-13: 978-0819512062 | Publication Date: September 15, 1992 | Edition: 1st

"When history proves useless and consensus chimerical," Donald Revell has written, "the poet's necessity is invention, and this does a lot to explain our century's preference for revision over mimesis." For Revell, The disruptions of this century have destroyed old illusions of historical continuity: "The consolations of history are furtive,/ then fugitive, then forgotten." Invoking such contemporary events as the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War, he seeks to integrate the political with the personal in a search for new paradigms of value and honor.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A glance at the titles of the first three poems here gives an indication of the sense of doom that pervades Revell's (New Dark Ages) fourth collection: The Lesson of the Classics...... Jeremiah, and The Massacre of the Innocents. While each represents a historical period, these opening poems are also the weakest. The pieces in the second section, however, show Revell's strengths as a poet as he alternates poetic lines with short prose passages, and manipulates language syntactically to produce surreal effects: Appetite of the gunman / in the church roof / trains upon his wife/ the remorse fugue the broach / of police injury. Revell does not always delight in such wordplay, however. Even in the final section, in which his poems assume contemporary settings and he permits more private memories to enter in, he often succumbs to didactic, moralizing reflections. The constant political message lurking beneath the surface of the poetry is not only strained, but viewed from afar-whether it has to do with the Cold War, the late massacres in China, or more often than not, some unspecific revolution.

Copyright 1992 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"In Revell's haunting new collection, the momentous political changes of the last few years rumble like aftershocks. Yet through the erasures the old life, life as we know it, continues to gleam, desperately, winningly"--John Ashbery. "Erasures is rare among collections of poetry today in being first and foremost, genuinely moving" (Marjorie Perloff )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 58 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan; 1st edition (September 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819512060
• ISBN-13: 978-0819512062
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,654,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Poet, translator and critic Donald Revell is the author of nine previous collections of poetry, most recently Pennyweight Windows: New and Selected Poems. Winner of the 2004 Lenore Marshall Award and two-time winner of the PEN Center USA Award in Poetry,

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An aesthetic raised to a sort of fence sitting, April 25, 2000

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Ryan Dickson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Erasures (Wesleyan Poetry Series) (Paperback)

Donald Revell captures life's struggles and hopes. The front cover is a good indication of where the book is going to take you. It is a painting by Rosenburg, in which he took a previous painting and altered it to fit into a new dimension. This is similar to Revell's ability to cause the reader of his beautifully short book to change their view on poetry. I have the privilege of knowing Donald personally, and I can only say that this book is an awakening into a beautiful man.