Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides (Poets, Penguin) [Paperback]

Stephen Dobyns (Author)

Book Description

Series: Poets, Penguin | Publication Date: October 1, 1999

With his signature wit and insight, award-winning poet Stephen Dobyns probes the secrets of the heart

Consider the mysteries of the heart, that blood-pumping organ and, in Stephen Dobyns' latest collection of poems, the hapless romantic of our interior landscape. "The Himalayas Within Him" finds Heart worrying about the sound of his own heartbeat, wondering why it doesn't "blare like a quartet of trombones" as it reflects his "ardent complexity." In "Goodbye to the Hands That Have Touched Him" Heart, after suffering many sleepless nights, decides "that love exists at the root of his problems. Without love his path would be as smooth as a plate of glass and he'd sleep like a kitten." Dividing the Heart poems is the long "Oh, Immobility, Death's Vast Associate," a jazzy disquisition on human isolation and inaction in the midst of a planet full of people feeling similarly. Throughout Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides Dobyns has painstakingly sculpted straightforward language into a distinct sound, creating an unforgettable collection of poems that offers readers unexpected revelations about the complexities of the heart.

. . . Why is Heart alone in the chest?
Because hope is an aspect of the single condition
and without hope, why move our feet? To see himself
as purely a fragment: such is Heart's obligation.
Let's quickly depart before we learn what happens.
Sometimes a car stops. Sometimes there is nothing.
--from "Like a Revolving Door"

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 10th collection of poems by suspense novelist (Boy in the Water; Forecasts, May 3) and poet Stephen Dobyns (Velocities; Common Carnage) is a modern morality cycle with an Everyman-like figure named Heart at its center. In 61 episodic poems, Dobyns reels off the foibles of Heart, who comes to resemble Charlie Brown as seen by Charles Bukowski. Heart is foiled repeatedly in his ill-conceived attempts to attract women (his knife-sharp steel valentine is intercepted by the bomb squad; he buys chest wigs to bolster his masculinity, but ends up eating them). His quest for happiness comes to an end over and over in similarly amusing and depressing anecdotes, and by the book's close one wonders whether Heart might not do well to listen to Prozac. Or even to FreudADobyns's willful sarcasm seems to want to foreclose its possibilities, as if by filling this book with cartoon versions of anxiety some genuine problem of lyric identityAis Heart really only misogynistic Spleen?Amight be forestalled. Which is not to dismiss the more pointed cartoons: in "Great Job," Heart takes the craze for validation to the point of running down into the street in the rain and telling everybody "Great job" as they pass. At the center of the book is a meditation on depressive inertia, "Oh, Immobility, Death's Vast Associate," in which Dobyns takes a stab at figuring out why most of existence is spent in a hostile state of doing nothing. In this case, it might just be a well-deserved rest. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Essaying his tenth collection of poems, Boston-based poet Dobyns pays complex tribute to admired poets John Berryman, Zbigniew Herbert, and others and in the process mines a new richness for his already skillful verse. Like his predecessors, Dobyns invents a second self, a kind of sad clown, whose zig-zag wanderings through life reflect issues both personal and universal; Dobyns's protagonist, Heart, frets over love, death, and dental work. In the center of these frank, witty anecdotes, Dobyns has placed a long poem (his most personal to date), the title lines of which suggest the whole book's meaning and preoccupation: "Oh, immobility, death's vast associate,/ you are the still center around which we jog." Like his maker, Heart clings to the hope that "when the world quits at last, he'll be like a bright bulb/ before the power is cutAstill burning, still bright." This is Dobyns's finest volume to dateAsplendidly free, profound, and absorbing. Highly recommended.AGraham Christian, Andover-Harvard Theological Lib., Cambridge, MA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); First Edition edition (October 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140589163
• ISBN-13: 978-0140589160
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,874,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes, it's wonderful poetry, February 2, 2000

By 

B - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides (Poets, Penguin) (Paperback)

Few books of poetry these days have such a sense of unity as this. Heart is a character that you follow from poem to poem as you might get caught up in the plot of a novel. Each poem stands on its own, too, with engaging and exciting language and a tone which ranges from wickedly funny to touchingly melancholy--sometimes being both at the same time. Stephen Dobyns is one of the best American poets writing today, and here he gives us an incredibly rewarding collection--the kind that you want to lock yourself in your room with and chew on for hours.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sly, Wise, Hilarious: Dobyns at his utter best, October 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides (Poets, Penguin) (Paperback)

I've been a Dobyns-follower for years. His CEMETERY NIGHTS is one of the books that mark a high point in my reading life. And I read a lot. PALLBEARERS is Dobyns to the nth degree -- sly, wise, hilarious. Dobyns and Heart are our modern Berryman and Henry. The man is a genius. If this book doesn't win every major poetry book award, there's something wrong with the system...

4.0 out of 5 stars A lot of fun., March 30, 2009

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides (Poets, Penguin) (Paperback)

Stephen Dobyns, Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides (Penguin, 1999)

What a great name for a book. Ain't it? It's what drew me to Dobyns' tenth book of poetry. Once I cracked the cover, his long-limbed, loose-jointed style kept me going:

"Heart considers the nature of fairness--
how some folks get pearls, others pebbles.
A rock falls out of the sky, who it smacks
is anyone's guess--butcher, crook, or priest.
Heart is struck by the unfairness of fairness.
What does it mean to deserve something?"
("Great Job")

The book is separated into three sections. The first and third are the Heart poems, a series of pieces (all in this style, with no stanza breaks, each running about a page and a half) about a character called Heart and his views on life. The middle section, "Oh Immobility, Death's Vast Associate", is one much longer piece in the same style. It doesn't hold up quite as well, for as you can tell from the excerpt above, these poems do almost as much telling as showing, and the longer the piece gets, the greater the chance it will become overwhelmed with its own exposition. The shorter poems, however, often strike the perfect balance. There is a good deal of fun to be had here, and, especially as Heart grows older in the later poems, a good deal of wisdom as well. Fun stuff, this. *** ½