The Perfect Heart: Selected and New Poems [Perfect Paperback]

Geof Hewitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 13, 2010

The Perfect Heart documents 45 years of extraordinary work by a poet who, according to David Ray, "is a true heir of Frost and Carruth, their tonalities and breadth of concern and vision, and shares their grounding in mythic Vermont. [Hewitt] is open to a multitude of leadings, never with restricted agendas, and fearlessly takes the reader along as a trusted friend and confidante. This book could aptly be called Love Tokens, for that's what most of the poems are. This is a collection to celebrate with each reading."

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Geof Hewitt is a pure original and always has been." --Naomi Shihab Nye

"[N]atural observation and metaphysical awareness in vivacious, trenchant, witty poems. No whispering or mumbling... Hewitt is far too confident in his own imagination to suppress it, and justly so." --Hayden Carruth

"I have followed Geof Hewitt's poetry since his student days at Cornell, and have admired both the constancy of his spirit and the development of his range, craft, and the variety of both his short and long poems." --David Ray

About the Author

Geof Hewitt grew up in New Jersey and graduated from Cornell University in 1966. After earning two advanced degrees and teaching for a year at the University of Hawaii, he moved to Vermont and married Janet Lind. In 1975 Rodale Press commissioned him to travel the country, interviewing self-employed people. Shortly after Working for Yourself was published, he took a job with the state arts council. He left that job in 1988 and found work as a writing consultant for the Vermont Department of Education, a position he held until 2009, when he turned sixty-six. He still teaches as a visiting writer-in-the-schools and for an undergraduate B.A. program for adults. Since 2000, Geof has been active in poetry slams, either competing or hosting. In 2004 he won the Vermont slam championship and, because no sanctioned championship has been held since, he continues to boast that he is the state's "reigning slam champ."

Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 110 pages
• Publisher: Mayapple Press (July 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0932412920
• ISBN-13: 978-0932412928
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 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: #3,925,206 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars See Vermont's Reigning Slam Champ on Paper!, October 21, 2010

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Mary Elizabeth - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Perfect Heart: Selected and New Poems (Perfect Paperback)

"The Perfect Heart: Selected and New Poems" is a fine collection of poems, usefully arranged by decade (or half decade, in the first section, which begins in 1965). The book is not all romantic poems, as one might gather from the title; rather, they are broad in scope, touching on a wide range of topics and emotions, and are worth reading, pondering, and rereading, both now and later. Some have been collected before in the shorter collection "Just Worlds" and some appear for the first time in this larger collection. The title poem, one of the new ones, is used as a fitting capstone to the collection.

The only thing I can suggest to improve your enjoyment of this book is to purchase "Hewitt's Guide to Slam Poetry and Poetry Slam with DVD" as an accompanying volume because with it comes a DVD that has video of Geof performing some of the poems in this volume, allowing you to experience them out loud as well as on the page.

*I first knew Geof Hewitt in his days serving as a writing consultant at the Vermont Department of Education.