The Marriage in the Trees [Paperback]

Stanley Plumly (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1998

Many of the poems in The Marriage in the Trees, Stanley Plumly's sixth book of poetry, concern the passing of the author's parents. They have the power of the deeply personal, and are clearly, in their wisdom and mastery of form and language, the work of a mature poet, one of our finest. Images of trees and birds dominate these poems. Birds --owls, doves, crows, and cardinals --whether remembered from childhood or spotted in a rain shower at Union Square, frequently inspire Plumly's lyrical meditations. They serve as symbols of the vitality at the abrupt edges of life. Trees--losing their leaves in the autumn, blooming in the spring, providing wood for both a home as well as a casket and cover from exposure--stand watch over these poems as they do over the life around us, symbols of permanence amid the transience of life. "They/link the past, medieval to modern/the leaves still dark in summer, bronze and butter through hundreds of falls and winters./They're what's left of a larger thing." Memory, history, and family are powerful presences here, the past infusing the present with questions and with meaning. The Marriage in the Trees advances Stanley Plumly's standing as one of our strongest and most accomplished lyric poets.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Arguably a shade lighter in tone than 1989's Boy on the Step (LJ 10/15/89), Plumly's sixth collection of lyric poems nevertheless sustains the air of melancholy his readers have come to expect; trees are "gothic with winter," a neighbor seems "boiled at birth/ in anger," and the streets harbor characters out of Fellini ("Dwarf with Violin"). When Plumly considers nature he approaches it on human terms, as metaphor ("The sycamore made maps of disappearance"), as literary creation rather than thing-in-itself. He shares with Keats?an explicit if ghostly presence here?and the Romantics the assumption that other living things possess an unknowable wisdom we can only appreciate intuitively. Peering into the invisible, the poet tries to fathom the patterns and forces to which all things submit. Earthy, edgy, and ethereal, these poems speak with dignity and simplicity; they collude with our fleeting senses of presence and absence, jar us when necessary, but at times strive to formulate the questions whose answers have no end.?Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Reading Stanely Plumly is like having someone whisper unceasingly in your ear, humming of light, trees, sleep, snow." -- -- New York Times Book Review

"Stanley Plumply is one of our best poets--one of a tiny number--and this is a wonderful book." -- David Baker, Poetry

"The voice of these poems reveals a plaintiveness without sentimentality, weaving poignant stories that transcend mere narrative." -- -- Boston Review

Earthy, edgy, and ethereal, these poems speak with dignity and simplicity. -- Library Journal

Reading Stanley Plumly is like having someone whisper unceasingly in your ear, humming of light, trees, sleep, snow. -- The New York Times Book Review

Stanley Plumly is one of our best poets--one of a tiny number--and this is a wonderful book. -- Poetry Magazine

The voice of these poems reveals a plaintiveness without sentimentality, weaving poignant stories that transcend mere narrative. -- Boston Review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 94 pages
• Publisher: Ecco (December 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880015462
• ISBN-13: 978-0880015462
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,583,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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