The Known World (Wesleyan Poetry Series) [Hardcover]

Don Bogen (Author)

Book Description

Series: Wesleyan Poetry Series | Publication Date: March 21, 1997

Turning bare description into a luxuriance, The Known World looks at the complex relationship of past and present, creating energetic juxtaposition between different historic periods to envision life at the end of our own century. Don Bogen calls the work an archeology, and uses details f life in past eras as a way of penetrating the surfaces of history. In his account, everything known is both encumbered with and defined by the past. Short poems in this collection cohere around the long title poem, which explores the nineteenth century through more than thirty sections in different voices and styles, including lists, mock letters, brief narratives, and lyric passages. The result is lively and illuminating.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bogen (The Splendid Display, 1986) works on a wide canvas, depicting past eras (in moments) to suggest illuminations for the present, as in the opening poem "Slum Corner": "On Vine Street the Dickensian splendor/ of the Omega Plasma Center./ Here are your eccentrics, your waifs/ in dangling mufflers and too-short topcoats/... bees drained twice a week/ of their dense honey." In his effort to establish the presence of the past, Bogen's detailed portrayals focus as much on surroundings as on people. Amid the columns, mirrors and misty fountains of "The Palace at Granada," the past "...blooms/ in a geometric/ ceiling, enlivens/ a door frame..." while in the dusty old-world auberge of "A Waiting Room in Vienna," amid a "spread of things, stolid, hierarchical," he observes that "time blurs its edge." The concreteness is invigorating, but Bogen's unchanging stance and tendency to declare meaning can dull the reading. "Salver" examines a bone china tray, rimmed in gold: "preserved, it will preserve," Bogen teaches us, and adds "completed, it will outlast us." The long title poem, which sensuously conjures up the 19th century, is burdened with abstractions about imperialism and suffering; immediacy is further blunted when punctuation is called upon to clarify irony, as in the phrase, "the `dark' continent." Bogen's need to explain and conclude diminishes the native tension of his clear-eyed observations.

Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

At best frustrating, Bogen's second volume of poetry (following After the Splendid Display, Univ. Pr. of New England, 1986) begins with the dictum that has formed the core of modern poetry: "no ideas but in things." But the things he chooses could not be further from the daily objects of modern life William Carlos Williams had in mind. Despite so much concreteness, there's very little here for readers to grab hold of. The 19th century, the setting for most of the poems, is romanticized: "He is a true barbarian" or "The miner's hearthchair/ was sacred." Those few poems that take place in the late 20th century seem to mock our inventions. On the book's final page things begin falling into place; the objects of Bogen's choosing are intended to be "New masks to mirror/ the past seen in the present/ which is a mirror/ of the past, masked and hence exotic." Wordplay such as this is random. And since most poems carry little or no lyric weight, there is little to recommend?except perhaps for literary historians.?Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 79 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan (March 21, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819522333
• ISBN-13: 978-0819522337
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,448,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A strong collection, January 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Known World (Wesleyan Poetry Series) (Paperback)

Bogen is an underrated poet whose reputation has not yet matched his achievement. The poems in this collection are challenging, but reward close reading. Wry humor marks some of them, while a broad interest in history gives the collection its depth.