Nervous Systems (National Poetry Series) [Mass Market Paperback]

William Stobb (Author)

Book Description

Series: National Poetry Series | Publication Date: May 29, 2007

Selected for the 2006 National Poetry Series by August Kleinzahler

William Stobb's poems attend calmly to a dynamic world. Nature, family, and friends are among the shifting systems where Stobb finds poems. His fluency in a variety of forms- from the measured tenderness of Jay Meek to the oceanic surrealism of Donald Revell- enacts the tension between order and entropy in the physical world we live in. "Stobb has nerve, talent, and engages this madly accelerating, and often nearly indecipherable, world in what's called real time," writes August Kleinzahler, "and he manages it without sacrificing emotional truth."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stobb's well-titled debut begins smart and ends tender: it starts with crisply layered bits of scenes, many from the rural or industrial Midwest, then moves through sometimes melancholy, sometimes delighted reflections on the poet's young daughter and on his anxious middle age. Landscapes compel in Stobb's writing whether their components, encountered in real life, would delight or appall. Here is an inventively stereoscopic view of a gravelly rural trail, with Twelve thousand version of twelve dozen ivy blossoms/ in the compound eye; there are rusted-out northern resorts/ where men in fishnet hats drink coffee. Filmic quick cuts (and metaphors from film and music) suggest the techniques of August Kleinzahler (who selected the book for the National Poetry Series); luminous descriptions call to mind the early Robert Hass. Yet Stobb turns his attention ultimately from things back to the people who live amid them. Midway through the volume, we find Stobb hoping our nostalgia and middle-aged foreboding/ would give way to an elegance that had always been east of us. Stobb's best poems—at the start and the end of the volume—include not only observation and tenderness but jazzy dissonance: I don't know my mangles// from my obtuse angles.... These are words for things. (June)
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About the Author

William Stobb is a professor of English at Viterbo University. A winner of the Nevada Arts Council Poetry Fellowship for 2000, his poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, and MiPOesias.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (May 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014311199X
• ISBN-13: 978-0143111993
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 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: #2,541,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Nervous Review, September 25, 2007

By 

Kely E. Sexton - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Nervous Systems (National Poetry Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

This collection is absolutely amazing. You can understand the origins of the title once you delve into the layered mind on display in his poems. Some of the works reach out and shake you while others have this sort of witty sarcasm that breaks up the seriousness. It's becoming hard to get your hands on lately.