Levering Avenue: Poems (Richard Wilbur Award, 1) [Hardcover]

Robert Daseler (Author)

Book Description

Series: Richard Wilbur Award, 1 | Publication Date: November 1, 1998

Levering Avenue by Robert Daseler, recipient of the 1998 Richard Wilbur Award, is a unique and powerful collection of contemporary sonnets dealing with the tragedy of human loss -- specifically the loss of a beloved wife. The collection's lyric poems stand both individually and collectively as a moving portrait and examination of the devastation of human grief. As poet and critic Robert Mezey explains, "Daseler writes of serious matters in a vigorous, plain English, and he sees things from an original and often unpredictable angle." As with Thomas Hardy's poems about the death of his wife, Levering Avenue renders an unforgettable, moving, and ultimately heroic confrontation with the inevitable human tragedies of loss and loneliness.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

paper 0-930982-51-7 Wyatt Prunty picked West Coast playwright and state library executive Daseler for this years Richard Wilbur Award: a first book of 60 sonnets that does manage to find richness and diversity within the repetition of form. The poet focuses mainly on the death of his wife, mother of his two sons, and weaves in and out of this main narrative with sonnets of blissful memory, profound regret, and simple blessings. Alternately anecdotal and philosophic, Daseler relieves the somber tones with some lighter poems about amateur homebuilding (Home Repair Depot), loving the sexy and violent movies we shouldnt (Cineplex), auditioning actresses for a play (The Audition), and an inoperative carousel (The Carousel). But Daselers grief runs deep throughout this melancholic sonnet sequence, and the placement of the poems presents an emotional cascade: no sooner does the poet recall a vision of his wifes loveliness than he descends into self- lacerating loneliness. First Victims explores the guilt of hurting those we love the most before Night Fog remembers the summer of their separation; Her Voice lingers lovingly on her distinctiveness before the title sonnet records a visit to their old apartment with the boys after her deatha moment at once nostalgic and sad. Her presence is felt everywhere: a photograph of her dressing, her favorite towels, her antiques, her garden. But as Nothing suggests, shes always defined by her absence: the sullen tyranny of what is not. Daseler takes us through his efforts to jumpstart his life: a trio of satiric sonnets on classified ads, a poem mocking his admiration for a woman beyond his reach, another on waking up with a woman not his wife. Like the expert sonnet sequence it is, Daselers volume builds to its final argument: his wifes love was all, and the immediately necessary struggle is to triumph over grief. A strong debut that finds its emotional balance: sentimental but not mopey. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Robert Daseler is a graduate of Pomona College and the University of California at Berkeley. His poems have been published in The Cimarron Review, The Formalist, Hellas, and other literary periodicals and his two plays, Dragon Lady and Alekhine's Defense, were produced by the South Coast Reperory Theatre. A widower, he currently lives with his two sons, Graham and Chase, in Davis, California, where he is the Director of Public Affairs for the California State Library.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 66 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Evansville Pr; 1st edition (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0930982509
• ISBN-13: 978-0930982508
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,890,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprise!, July 14, 1999

By 

Alexsandra C. McGuire (Indian Wells, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Levering Avenue: Poems (Richard Wilbur Award, 1) (Hardcover)

I expected this collection to be maudlin, melancholy or wistfully reminiscent. WRONG!

This is a marvelous collection of sonnets (a feat in itself) that gives the reader a glimpse into the life of a man whose wife died at an young age, leaving him with two sons to raise. His grief is obvious, but so is his love of life, of his sons and of having and sharing new experiences. His sense of humor endures the hard times. I laughed out loud at the Classified Ad series. My favorite poem is the lighthearted "Canny Shopper".

If you love poetry, even if you don't know that you love poetry, buy this book. It is a beautiful little book. I have now purchased half a dozen for dear friends. Each one has been impressed with my (until now hidden!) literary sense of fine poetry.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fathers, August 18, 2010

By 

Zach Hudson (Troutdale, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Levering Avenue: Poems (Richard Wilbur Award, 1) (Hardcover)

I am the father of two daughters, a two- and a four-year-old. Maybe because of that this poem caught my attention recently:

He was so beautiful at four I scarce could look
At him without a kind of squeezing of
My heart, a tugging and a throbbing that took
My breath away, and though we call this love,
I cannot name it that, for so debased
A word cannot approach the flood
Of feeling he awoke in me or taste
The savage surging crisis in my blood.
A child to hold is unlike any other
Investment we can make. A heart grown hoarse
With care is found generally in the mother,
But fathers also yield to nature's force
And feel their hearts torn open and exposed,
More hostage to this care than they supposed.

"Fathers", Robert Daseler


I love Daseler's sonnets, and not just because they are sonnets. It takes guts to write in a form so constrained and weighed down by tradition, but it takes skill to do it well. The verses are creative, too, another plus when writing in a traditional form, and Daseler keeps the language sounding natural, not stilted, and keeps the rhymes interesting as well: "ideas" with "azaleas", "practice" with "cactus". He uses the sonnet like John Donne used it: for contemplating deeply (as opposed to its other established uses--wooing and pining). It is a shame that, so far as I can tell, Daseler hasn't written any more recently.


Zach Hudson
[...]

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is NOT out of print!, September 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Levering Avenue: Poems (Richard Wilbur Award, 1) (Hardcover)

This book is not out of print. I do not know why you list it that way