The Iron Key: Poems [Hardcover]

James Longenbach (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2010

A capacious, elegant collection from a writer “with an ear as subtle and assured as any American poet now writing” (John Koethe).

These poems are filled with the accumulated treasure of a lifetime, yet at their heart is the loss that fuels this dream of abundance: the friend to be mourned, the child to be loved, the poem to be written. Again and again, The Iron Key brings us to the door that opens onto the future.

from "April 2003"

      I felt like a boy again, my navel flat as a dime—
      The glamour of protest, however compromised,

      Our certainty old people were wrong.
      Poetry is against war or else it isn't poetry

      Said my friend the poet, as if by breathing
      We were glamorous.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

James Longenbach (The Art of the Poetic Line) is an incontestably brilliant critic. This fourth book of poetry shares some of the virtues of Longenbach's criticism--the poems are unfalteringly wise and knowledgeable about the poetic tradition. At their best moments, these often narrative poems borrow the haunting logic of distant memories ("I wouldn't say this to everyone, but when I wrote / In heaven, if you say the word death, nobody understands, / I was thinking about paperclips"), but there are also moments when this book reads like a short story. Still, Longenbach is an expert storyteller and never fails to alight upon dazzling and often ominous visions: "The snow is in retrospect an image of/ Plenitude, not of desolation." His stories also tend to be scholarly: "Though my father painted like Sargent/ He raised me on modernism./ ... Space was color, shadow was color." Throughout the book, Longenbach seeks words for the few fundamental truths: "You're angry because everyone you love is dying./ You've known this since you were a child."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

James Longenbach's work is often featured in The New Yorker and the Paris Review. He lives in New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 89 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 4, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393078957
• ISBN-13: 978-0393078954
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #311,254 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful Collection, February 7, 2012

By 

Mr. Steiner (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Iron Key: Poems (Hardcover)

James Longenbach's beautiful collection of poems is a stark, tactile work that forces the imagination to feel the presence of past loss. Summoning the dark feeling and image of Venice, Longenbach draws a minimalist constellation of memories and disappointments, though he never uses too heavy a hand. The following is from "Seven Venices":

"A black iron key for Mrs. Hunter, who collected keys.

Photographs she considered vulgar.

Keys from China, Istanbul, Cairo

In a house in New Jersey.

My father made paintings of her keys.

In the Campo Santa Margherita I bought a key.

On the ceiling of her bedroom

He painted a map of the world.

Longenbach has gathered a world that is at once singular and multiple-it is a world of broken fragments which nevertheless constitute a beautiful constellation. This collection is an extraordinary aesthetic achievement.