Lightered: New and Selected Poems [Paperback]

Van K. Brock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2005

Poetry. LIGHTERED includes poems from five decades. Brock's work ranges from his American South to explorations in world cultures, that together led to probing the roots of the Holocaust. Van K. Brock is a poet to cherish--and read!--for his sense (wisdom) and skill in bringing the secrets of our time to us without spoiling the mystery. These lightered poems give brief strong light to family tragedies, evidence of ancient, too-present crime. [And] there are folktunes here, much music in the words for dancing, fields of sunflowers, washing screaming to be hung "in the sun like saved sinners."--Michael Mott.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...Brock knows how to brush just enough strangeness into our speech to make it song and to make it last. -- R T Smith

I’ve followed his work for years. I value this up-to-date definitive collection. -- David Ray

Lightered is a...history book...a book of mythology, a travelogue, a diary, a shoebox filled with...love letters... -- A Magazine of Art and Writing, Spring, 2006

Van K. Brock is a poet to cherish — and read! -- Michael Mott

About the Author

Van K. Brock is author of The Hard Essential Landscape, The Window, Unspeakable Strangers, and other collections. He grew up in South Georgia, earned his MA, MFA and PhD at Iowa, and taught creative writing for several decades at Florida State University. He founded Sundog (now the Southeast Review), International Quarterly, and Anhinga Press (more at http://mailer.fsu.edu/~vbrock). He and his wife, Flavia Maria da Silveira Lobo, divide their time between Tucson and Rio de Janeiro.

Product Details

• Paperback: 185 pages
• Publisher: Anhinga Press Inc. (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0938078844
• ISBN-13: 978-0938078845
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 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: #4,599,780 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brock expresses life in extraordinary ways...., December 18, 2005

By 

Laurel Johnson (Kansas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lightered: New and Selected Poems (Paperback)

Within this book are five decades of poetry, Van Brock's history as poet and human. Brock speaks of the ordinary in extraordinary ways, and this includes the title's meaning. Lightered is a southern U.S. colloquialism for "lighter wood" --fatwood, pine tar-rich wood that burns whether wet or not. True to his title, Brock's poetry burns on every page. His topics range from everyday happenings to destroyed human and
animal habitat to love, racism, and human annihilations, past and present. He is equally adept at free form or sonnet. And his treatment of ekphrasis -- poetry inspired by viewing photographs or paintings -- is exceptional. Simply stated, Brock is an accomplished poet and this book is packed with wondrous words.

In this excerpt from "This is Not a Love Poem", Brock memorializes past times in a once pristine land and grieves its passing:
This is not a love song. Listen.
It is the wind on a prairie where
no buffalo roam and no smoke rises
in the long winter without villages;
this is the muffled sound in the iron rails
spiked to the hewn bodies of the lost forests...

In Lightered, Van Brock shares his joys and sorrows honestly. Some memories are wounds that can't be healed. Hitler's holocaust and America's failed promise haunt him. Lightning-struck trees speak flawed runes, and coyotes howl their outrage at an ever-dwindling territory. This poet shares his vision in beautiful, uncommon ways.