Brief Landing on the Earth's Surface (Brittingham Prize in Poetry) [Hardcover]

Juanita Brunk (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 28, 1996 | Series: Brittingham Prize in Poetry

In Brief Landing on the Earth’s Surface, even the most ordinary moments are infused with an awareness of the lost past and a kind of prescience of the future. From one setting to another—Tidewater Virginia, rural Pennsylvania, Greece, New York City—these poems give voice to the human longing for permanence, home, and connection in the face of a constantly changing reality.
 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"I want to wake up again/ to this world..." writes Juanita Brunk in her new collection, Brief Landing on the Earth's Surface. The poems in this wide-awake collection (which was chosen by Philip Levine for the 1996 Brittingham Prize) move comfortably between nostalgia and a cheerful interest in the anecdotal, worldly lives we continue to lead.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

Winner of the publisher's Brittingham Prize in poetry for 1996, Brunk's work is a poignant collection of narrative poems evoking the terror and beauty of relationships. Separation, infidelity, abuse, and failure are the predominant themes. A lost lover is metamorphosed into a "tin can/ clanging against a barbed wire fence/ in the middle of the night." A music teacher is recalled with the telling image of "a birdbath full of rotting leaves." But the poet also perceives beauty and wonder in the midst of a world of "wet grapefruit rinds" because the blue morning glory still proffers its "cup of light," and a baby on the bus beholds the world freshly with eyes "luminous, surprised." Food figures prominently in this world. A carrot announces, "I eat mud. I look like a penis." A lobster in the pot weeps "steamy tears," and a man has "hands like potatoes." Brunk's poems are nostalgic, graphic, and always readable. For all large poetry collections.
Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Findlay, Ill.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 66 pages
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press (August 28, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0299152006
• ISBN-13: 978-0299152000
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,915,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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