Graft (New Issues Poetry & Prose) [Paperback]

Brian Henry (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1930974329 | ISBN-13: 978-1930974326 | Publication Date: September 30, 2003

Poetry. "I honor and admire these poems for their groundwork understanding.Here, oppression is shown forth as a condition of language, a violence of syntax. And here, in resistance to oppression, extraordinariness lifts a beautiful, if harried, affirming sound. With signal integrity, the poet exploits no popular catastrophe but chooses, instead, to enter the mythic heart of catastrophe, there to make new myths"—Donald Revell.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Verse magazine and Verse press co-editor Henry's two previous books, Astronaut and American Incident, appeared in the U.S. in 2002; each flaunted his skill with verbal disjunction and whimsical cut-up tales. This new book is a departure, having a single subject and a rigorously unified tone. The subject is sex, and the tone is dry, self-punishing and removed. The volume's first half offers a decidedly male perspective on heterosexual sex, from the heat of a first encounter to a long-renewed, occasionally embittered passion. "Your legs will not spread wide enough/ to allow for the loosening," Henry says of one scene; another finds "No part of her not shedding in my mouth." Self-abasement, disgust and highly conflicted poems about sex between men come to the fore in Part II. Though many stanzas can be direct, others inspire a bracing abstraction; sexual encounters and memories occur amid a riverine, chilly landscape, marked by oil drums, "suffering" and "real snow." The most discursive poems suggest the productive influence of Donald Revell; more lyrical segments, such as "Another Cross," combine that influence with C.D. Wright. The last, perhaps best, poems move from "thoughts uncertain of the effect/ they seek" to "the pain/ of skin against skin." Henry asks elsewhere if writing about sex "requires a constant/ violence against specifics/ as desire takes over the mind of the task?" It is a question this volume seems designed to provoke.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"[a] ruthlessly intelligent book..." -- Reginald Shepherd

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Product Details

• Paperback: 63 pages
• Publisher: New Issues Press (September 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930974329
• ISBN-13: 978-1930974326
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 5.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,363 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brian Henry is the author of eight books of poetry: Astronaut (short-listed for the Forward Prize), American Incident, Graft, Quarantine (winner of the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award), The Stripping Point, Wings Without Birds, Lessness, and Doppelgänger. His work has been translated into Croatian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, and Slovenian, and his books have been translated into Slovenian and Serbian. He has co-edited Verse magazine since 1995. His translation of Tomaž Šalamun's Woods and Chalices appeared from Harcourt in 2008, and his translation of Ales Šteger's The Book of Things appeared from BOA Editions in 2010 and won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award.