Requiem for the Orchard (Akron Series in Poetry) [Paperback]

Oliver de la Paz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2010 | Series: Akron Series in Poetry

These are vivid, visceral poems about coming of age in a place 'where the Ferris Wheel / was the tallest thing in the valley,' where a boy would learn 'to fire a shotgun at nine and wring a chicken's neck / with one hand by twirling the bird and whipping it straight like a towel.' . . . In spite of such hardscrabble cruelties or because of them there is also a real tenderness in these poems, the revelations of bliss driving along an empty highway 'like opening a heavy book, / letting the pages feather themselves and finding a dried flower.' . . . The poet has a gift for rendering his world in cinematic images. . . . In short, these poems are the stuff of life itself, ugly and beautiful, wherever or whenever we happen to live it. Martin Espada

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Oliver de la Paz is the author of two previous collections of poetry, Names Above Houses and Furious Lullaby, published by Southern Illinois University Press. He is the co-chair of the advisory board for Kundiman. A recipient of a GAP grant from the Artist Trust of Washington and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, his work has appeared in anthologies such as Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation and Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond, as well as in journals such as the Virginia Quarterly Review, Diode, Crab Orchard Review, Chattahoochee Review, and Hayden's Ferry Review. He teaches creative writing and literature at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington.

Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: University Of Akron Press; 1 edition (March 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931968748
• ISBN-13: 978-1931968744
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.2 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: #657,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Oliver de la Paz is the author of three collections of poetry, Names Above Houses, Furious Lullaby (SIU Press), and the forthcoming Requiem for the Orchard (University of Akron Press). He co-chairs the advisory board of Kundiman, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Asian American Poetry. A recipient of a NYFA Fellowship Award and a GAP Grant from Artist Trust, his work has appeared in journals like Virginia Quarterly Review, North American Review, Tin House, Chattahoochee Review, and in anthologies such as Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation. He teaches at Western Washington University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Requiem for the Orchard, March 9, 2010

By 

Jay M. Robinson (Wooster, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Requiem for the Orchard (Akron Series in Poetry) (Paperback)

At what point does a poet discover his voice? For one thing, the question supposes that such a thing as voice exists, when, really, voice is nothing but a snapshot of the moment's song. For another, little agreement, aesthetically speaking, on what qualities in a voice are admirable can be found across the generations. Yet, Requiem for the Orchard, the third full-length collection from Oliver de la Paz and winner of the 2009 Akron Prize in Poetry as chosen by Martin Espada, sings with full-throated splendor as it harmonizes wit and tenacity. Half-elegy, half lullaby, the book illustrates how memory can be a cracked and hazy lens through which we gaze backward and forward simultaneously, our hearts as flooded with longing as they are with apprehension, and an occasional moment of levity. But it's not just the music of de la Paz's poetry that holds our attention; it's the stuff of these poems, too, that makes them great. Neruda, with his unflinching affinity for everyday objects, the very thing-ness of a thing, would have loved these poems so stuffed from start to finish with corncobs and storehouses, flames and horses, apples and anchors. Identity, metaphor-both themes dominate the book, and each becomes a critical component to the speaker's struggle to reconcile the past with the present, all while the future and fatherhood beckons. Early on, "Self-Portrait as the Burning Plains of Eastern Oregon" looks back on the disquiet of youth, though the quest is hardly an attempt at reconciliation: "My name is not a fire. My name is not a story of fire. / I've got nothing in common with that element, save contempt // for the places of my youth and a hunger for air. Instead, what's past is past, and cannot be returned to, for better or worse: "[W]hat's left / ....crumbles to the touch," the poem concludes. Again and again, the poet returns to his past. "Requiem," a long poem split into sections, punctuates much of the book--with more question marks than periods. It's both an elegy and a self-examination. But de la Paz also turns his eye to the future, and necessarily so. "No One Sleeps through the Night" finds the speaker as sleepless as his infant son: "Little no one, peace and go. / I'll be watching while the sleep gods // lean and cast their shadows here." Later, the poem articulates the oddity of parental affection, how we love so swiftly and completely what we do not know: "Child, you are my moon apple. // My highly prized coin. Your bright eyes / leave blue glance tracks. Who are you?" One of Requiem's strengths is its structure, too, how de la Paz knits together this book with recurring elements from poem to poem, title to title. The end result is a fitting conclusion. "Self-Portrait with What Remains" fuses it all, and notes how all that's left of the past is the present where "...my son's outstretched arms / want[sic] nothing more than to be held aloft." And it's that very gesture, of holding aloft an ordinary life with a newly found sense of pleasure and responsibility, that define this book and make it something worth reading, and reading again.