The Green Tuxedo (The Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry) (The Ernst Sandeen Prize in Poetry) [Paperback]

Janet Holmes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1998 | Series: The Ernst Sandeen Prize in Poetry (Book 1999)

Janet Holmes's second book of poems is winner of the 1999 Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry from the University of Notre Dame Press.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...Janet Holmes explores and celebrates the most intimate moments of our separate histories--especially our struggle 'against the literal.' Her voice is the sound of lives briefly converging or colliding, a music somewhere between a raw Carl Sandburg and a fluid Elizabeth Bishop." -- Dionisio D. Martinez

"Janet Holmes's first book, The Physicist at the Mall, introduced us to a remarkable new voice: fiercely intelligent, buoyant with humor, alert to mysteries of language and landscape. The Green Tuxedo more than fulfills the earlier book's promise, adding to it a formal inventiveness and mastery that amazes and delights.... If any recent book could capture a new and reluctant audience for poetry, this is it." -- Tom Andrews

"The Green Tuxedo is a wonderful book.... Godspeed this book's light into the darkness that surrounds us all." -- Thomas Lux

"The Green Tuxedo is one of the most original books of poetry I've read in some time. Janet Holmes possesses an enviable virtuosity: whether in luminous lyric voice or in the seemingly straightforward prose 'found poem' segments, her subtle shifts of mind and canny juxtapositions delight the reader with digressions and returns, with perceptiveness and grace." -- Susan Ludvigson

Adopted Bird
Against The Literal
The Aquarium
At Tea With The Epistemologist
The Bachelor's House
The Blue World
A Box Of Old Slides
Departures
Drive Shaft
The Duck At Midlife
The Erotics Of Detail
Florida, 1985
The Green Tuxedo
Hieroglyphs
How
Landscape Duel
The Mortician's Son
My Mother's Clown
Particulars
Post-solstice
Prostrated Over Fiance's Killing
Still Life With Bad Dog
What
When
Where
Who
Why
Wild Women I Have Known: 1
Wild Women I Have Known: 2. An Aside From Kipling
Wild Women I Have Known: 2. My Mother's Contribution
Wild Women I Have Known: 2. Other Questions
Wild Women I Have Known: 2. Our Names
Wild Women I Have Known: 2. Radio Interview
Wild Women I Have Known: 2. Roaring Twenties
Wild Women I Have Known: 2. S.o.b.
Wild Women I Have Known: 2. Skipped Numbers
Wild Women I Have Known: 2. Their Names
Yellow Period
Your Bird
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

From the Back Cover

Janet Holmes's second book of poems explores and interrogates the quotidian life of the late twentieth century for what exists behind its often seductive appearance. In these poems we see beneath acceptable, sleek surfaces into the turbulence they often conceal, as the splendid green tuxedo of the title may disguise a heart that harbors racism, fear, and violence.... In the second half of The Green Tuxedo, Holmes draws on recently discovered diaries kept by her journalist father nearly fifty years before her birth. Sifting through evidence and memory, she entwines actual diary entries (such as a seventy-seven name list of "Wild Women I Have Known") with speculation and invention to generate a portrait that discovers him--re-invents him--as a young man. This sequence, searching and elegaic, affords closure to a book whose questioning suggest less a need for absolute answers than a declaration of the need to explore. Holmes leads us through a world of appearances, celebrating the necessary examination of what is concealed.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 60 pages
• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press; First Edition edition (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0268010366
• ISBN-13: 978-0268010362
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,726,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breath-taking, accessible poetry, September 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Green Tuxedo (The Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry) (The Ernst Sandeen Prize in Poetry) (Paperback)

Janet Holmes has the rare ability to write layered, moving, lyrical poetry that transports the reader and allows her to think and wonder and imagine. Many of the poems deal with the beauty or sleek appearance of the surface while delving into the dirth of it just underneath. Juxtaposition also is used well. As great as her work was in "The Physicist at the Mall", an earlier collection of poetry, "The Green Tuxedo" soars to the next level of creativity.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars stunning, intense, involving poetry, February 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Green Tuxedo (The Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry) (The Ernst Sandeen Prize in Poetry) (Paperback)

Janet Holmes's poetry treads the line between accessible and intense. The poems about her father and about nature and relationships are touching without being trite. If you have refused to read any poetry more modern than Frost, because it is all too confusing, here you are in for a treat. The poems and their structure well-repay multiple readings and close attention.