Gravedigger's Birthday: Poems by BJ Ward [Paperback]

BJ Ward (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2002

"In poems that both honor and transcend his blue-collar roots, BJ Ward blends poignancy and humor with downright good storytelling, and takes his place among the bright up-and-coming voices of his generation."
—Stephen Dunn, Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Editorial Reviews

Review

"BJ Ward writes noisy, aggressive, lovely poems full of heart and brawn. Gravedigger's Birthday is a pleasure."
—Stephen Dobyns, author of The Porcupine's Kisses

About the Author

BJ Ward's work has appeared in Poetry, TriQuarterly, Painted Bride Quarterly, and a host of other journals. The recipient of four major fellowships, he teaches at Warren County Community College and the Governor's School for the Arts in New Jersey, where he lives. Gravedigger's Birthday was selected as a finalist for the 2003 Paterson Poetry Prize.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: North Atlantic Books (August 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556434227
• ISBN-13: 978-1556434228
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.2 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,893,149 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Missed Irony, April 28, 2004

By 

"zenzoril" (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gravedigger's Birthday: Poems by BJ Ward (Paperback)

In "Gravedigger's Birthday", Wards impressed me by repeatedly taking issues I thought I knew and cracking them open, exposing something new. From The Suicidologist, Sex with Emily Dickinson, to Upon being Asked... he looks at a diverse set of issues-family, violence, sex, roots- and succeeds in articulately pulling the profound out of the relatively mundane. But this is what excites me about any poet that I enjoy.
I found Ward distinctive because his poems gave me the feelings of peering up through the bottom of a fish bowl, instead of down into it. Starting with the cover (the pristine cake in the dirty hole), he seems to be asserting that tongue-twisting lyricism can live in the gritty and struggling places that many of the poems wind their way back to. Though many of the poems were literally about his family, its seems to me that the poems are really about snaking back to an admittedly-humble origin. I think he uses details to promote this effect, giving the abstractions time and place (in Roy Orbison, how he's on "Route 80" in New Jersey, driving his "Toyota Corolla"). Additionally, perhaps inadvertently, his repeated references to The Odyssey also suggest a long and tumultuous striving towards home.
He avoids falling into the blooming-through-the-cracked-sidewalk cliché by constantly invigorating his work with a casual, everydayness that I felt suggested reconciliation rather than voyeuristic self-interest. Perhaps its just the perspective of age, but I found that his wittiness keeps this collection of poems about fundamental human experiences original and eye-opening.
Additionally, the highly critical reviews above complete miss the diversity that Ward demonstrates in his other collections. Further, a close reading of several of his more satirical poems will undercover a ironic wit. This irony overarches this entire collection, and it is the mixture of a tumultuous past and hopeful future that enables Wards works to transcend his (occasionally uninspired) language, and makes this collection more than simply the dribble of another self-pitier.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Winner from Another Great NJ Poet, August 18, 2003

By 

B. Niedt (Cherry Hill, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gravedigger's Birthday: Poems by BJ Ward (Paperback)

As an aspiring poet myself, I'm proud to be from New Jersey, which has a rich heritage of fine poets, from Walt Whitman to recent Pultizer-Prize winner Paul Muldoon. And there's this guy, who's blown me away every time I've heard him read his works. I've also had the pleasure of taking one of his workshops. BJ Ward writes about life from an everyguy, working-class perpsective, but with a wonderful command of language, humor and pathos. His poems range from near-heartbreaking reminiscences of a hard childhood, to poems of driving, singing along to Roy Orbison or spotting a groundhog beside the highway. These are highly accessible, but expertly crafted works, and I highly recommend this volume as well as his previous one, "17 Love Poems with No Despair". If you like Billy Collins, you'll love BJ Ward!

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars in response to oh come on and dabman, December 3, 2005

By 

Charles M. Rafferty "Charles Rafferty" (Sandy Hook, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Gravedigger's Birthday: Poems by BJ Ward (Paperback)

I'm not sure if they're idiots or cowards, or merely people with poor taste. Gravedigger's Birthday is Ward's best book. The reasons are numerous, but my favorite is that Ward has found plausible rhymes for "orange" and "purple." Who else has done that? Oh Come On and Dabman are the perfect reason to disregard anonymous reviews. They sound like the fat, arthritic slobs I hear every Tuesday morning, talking about how they would have played the football game the night before. I hear them and I contemplate the pleasures of the deaf -- the miseries of the tone-deaf.