Keep This Forever [Perfect Paperback]

Mark Halliday (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2008

In this, his fifth book of poems, written in the aftermath of his fathers death, Mark Halliday proves to be one of Americas most intimate poets. Like Frank OHara and Kenneth Koch, Hallidays poems chat with the reader in earnest yet humorous ways and in wholly believable voices. Whether exploring grief or desire or loneliness, these poems never forget the human longing for permanence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Known for garrulously comic moments and dead-on versions of modern Americans' colloquial speech, Halliday (Jab) begins his fifth book of verse with purposely flat and intensely serious poems reacting to the death of his father, who lived not without some gladness till he was eighty-nine,/ nourished as well as ravaged by irresistible wishing. That personal sadness inspires reflections on mortality more generally, at the start as at the end of this striking collection. In between, though, Halliday flaunts his gift for informal humor, poking fun at contemporary ephemera while finding the element of memento mori in each. Google Me Soon, one poem invites: You and I, we could have a connection. I'm the little cup of overcooked beans, another poem decides, somebody covered with plastic wrap and pushed to the back of/ the fridge. It can be hard to know when Halliday is kidding—but that difficulty is part of his point: in a world full of people whose stories we may never know, who may or may not have urgent messages for us, Halliday seeks a style sad enough to describe those missed connections, and surprising enough to let us have fun with them, too. (Sept.)
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Review

Known for garrulously comic moments and dead-on versions of modern Americans' colloquial speech, Halliday (Jab) begins his fifth book of verse with purposely flat and intensely serious poems reacting to the death of his father, who lived not without some gladness till he was eighty-nine,/ nourished as well as ravaged by irresistible wishing. That personal sadness inspires reflections on mortality more generally, at the start as at the end of this striking collection. In between, though, Halliday flaunts his gift for informal humor, poking fun at contemporary ephemera while finding the element of memento mori in each. Google Me Soon, one poem invites: You and I, we could have a connection. I'm the little cup of overcooked beans, another poem decides, somebody covered with plastic wrap and pushed to the back of/ the fridge. It can be hard to know when Halliday is kiddingbut that difficulty is part of his point: in a world full of people whose stories we may never know, who may or may not have urgent messages for us, Halliday seeks a style sad enough to describe those missed connections, and surprising enough to let us have fun with them, too. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Publishers Weekly

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Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 86 pages
• Publisher: Tupelo Press; First edition. edition (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932195726
• ISBN-13: 978-1932195729
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.7 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 (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,174,513 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 the funniest poet in america, October 10, 2008

By 

Private Citizen "PC" (Oxford MS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Keep This Forever (Perfect Paperback)

Mark Halliday is one of the funniest poets in American poetry; edgier and nervier than Billy Collins, more grounded than James Tate- but comparisons are odious. Keep this forever has lots of wit and lots of heart, and lots of perceptive investigations-- that's what his poems are--of what it feels like to be an American in our time, in our landscapes of consumerism and complicity, and isolation and relationship. Halliday can play postmodern word games when he wants to, but his poems satirize such word games; his poems don't provide solutions, except the solution of honesty, and honoring your own confused experience of humanity. He's not sentimental like too many sincerists, but he's not cynical either. And he's always clear as aquavit; but more flavorful, more insightful. I laugh out loud all the time at his poems.