ROTC Kills: Poems [Paperback]

John Koethe (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 28, 2012

“[A] visionary new book of poems and prose meditations.”
—Susan Stewart, author of Columbarium and Red Rover

“John Koethe’s poems…are profound meditations on time and the curious hold it has on the human psyche. In them, even the most extreme exertions of consciousness are transformed into the faultless measures of clear and beautiful speech.”
—American Academy of Arts and Letters

ROTC Kills is a lyrical and arresting new collection from renowned poet John Koethe, 2011 winner of the Arts and Letters Award and the Lenore Marshall Prize for the year’s outstanding work of poetry.  As typified by the provocative title piece—a wistful look back at the poet’s years at Harvard University in the late sixties—the poetry and prose within evoke the memories and dreams; the literature, popular culture, and philosophy of a generation through the lens of the poet’s personal history. In the grand tradition of Wordsworth, Wallace Stevens, and John Ashbery, ROTC Kills is an important work from a major American poet.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Koethe has held numerous positions: professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, the Bain-Swiggett Professor of Poetry at Princeton, the first poet laureate of Milwaukee. He has received numerous awards, including, in 2011, the Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. ROTC Kills is his twelfth book, his ninth poetry collection. The provocative title suggests a book with more violent preoccupations. Koethe is a first-person poet. His mode is ruminative; his versification uniform. Even the few poems that appear in stanzas are not significantly different than the long, unrhymed lines of the rest. Koethe writes of time, mind, and the meaning of life. He handles big themes deftly, like the professional philosopher he is. A few poems rise out of reflection into more rarified air: “I’ll be explicit: / Time kills you, while places stay essentially the same.” Offered not as an answer to a question, less as a peroration than a statement of fact, it disturbs less than it might. The poet seems comfortable with uncomfortable insights; readers may take comfort in Koethe’s lyric musings. --Michael Autrey

Review

“In this ninth collection of poems, very much obsessed with time’s passage and its ending, with aging, remembering and preparing to die, poet-philosopher Koethe is in full, lucid command of his voice, an amiable hybrid of late Wallace Stevens, late John Ashbery, and William Bronk.” (Publishers Weekly (starred review) )

“Koethe’s winding syntax with its sudden, animating insights is like the clear, radiant path of a sunbeam; he illuminates another life inside our lives--the generous and capacious life of hte imagination that is his true province and home.” (Susan Stewart, author of COLUMBARIUM and RED ROVER )

“John Koethe’s poems in which he describes his past are more than simple memorials or langurous retrievals; rather, they are profound meditations on time and the curious hold it has on the human psyche.” (American Academy of Arts and Letters )

“Koethe is a beautiful writer, one whose subtle inventiveness can give new life to persistent images, nail a complex feeling in just a few words, or make the basic tools of the poetic trade into sources of pleasure and persuasion.” (Slate )

“Koethe . . . might be unmatched in the manner in which he thinks in his poems. Or, more than thinks, he meditates. He dramatizes the emotional vitality of an idea which nowadays is strangely and sadly rare.” (The Rumpus )

“He handles big themes deftly, like the professional philosopher he is. . . . The poet seems comfortable with uncomfortable insights; readers may take comfort in Koethe’s lyric musings.” (Booklist )

“I can think of no one whose company I’d rather keep-for Koethe writes in the water of his time, knowing all is temporary.” (Washington Independent Review of Books )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial; Original edition (August 28, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006213602X
• ISBN-13: 978-0062136022
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #545,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Koethe has been Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the first Poet Laureate of Milwaukee. His collections include North Point North, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Falling Water, which won the Kingsley-Tufts Award. In 2005, John Koethe was a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin; in 2008, he was the Elliston Poet in Residence at the University of Cincinnati; and in 2010, he was the Bain-Swiggett Professor of Poetry at Princeton University. In 2011, he received the Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Milkaukee, Wisconsin.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Idiosyncratic, meditative, gifted... February 9, 2013

By anonymous

Format:Paperback

John Koethe's poems resist summarizing in the same way Stevens's poems do. They are not easy to encapsulate, in part, because there is a kind of Wordsworthian intoxication with ideas that is unusual on the scene today. He is a modest, self-effacing poet, but a bold and gifted one.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful February 15, 2013

By kitty kat

Format:Paperback

The poems in ROTC KILLS are about life and death. They are about what is real and what is not. The poems are about the past, the present and the future and they ask questions to which there are few, if any, answers. It's an interesting and wonderful book.