Riding Westward: Poems [Hardcover]

Carl Phillips (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0374250030 | ISBN-13: 978-0374250034 | Publication Date: April 18, 2006 | Edition: 1st

The singer turning thisand that way, as if watching the song itself
--the words to the song--leave him, as he
lets each go, the wind carrying most of it,
some of the words, falling, settling into
instead that larger darkness, where the smaller

darknesses that our lives were lie softly down."
--from "Riding Westward"

What happens when the world as we've known it becomes divided, when the mind becomes less able--or less willing--to distinguish reality from what is desired? In Riding Westward, Carl Phillips wields his celebrated gifts for syntax and imagery that are unmistakably his own--speculative, athletic, immediate--as he confronts moral crisis. What is the difference, he asks, between good and evil, cruelty and instruction, risk and trust? Against the backdrop of the natural world, Phillips pitches the restlessness of what it means to be human, as he at once deepens and extends a meditation on that space where the forces of will and imagination collide with sexual and moral conduct.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The prolific, always articulate Phillips attained late-'90s acclaim for a series of books (among them Pastoral and From the Devotions) whose intricate clauses and mythic topics followed the passions and trials of physical embodiment and erotic (especially same-sex) love. In recent years, he has sought clearer, more various styles in which to take on the same concerns: never more than in this eighth collection, which proposes "cruelty as a means of understanding... love's conditions—not clear,/ but clearer," and wants us to admit, "that's/ how we like it, I'll break your heart, break mine." Short sentences mixed with long, arresting confessions mixed with hard explanations, make parts of the love poems and antilove poems as memorable as ever. Phillips's command of syntax, while changing favored forms, remains, as does his acquaintance with the knots and contradictions of desire: "Trust me," one poem asks, "the way one animal trusts another." (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Phillips' eighth poetry collection showcases his distinct philosophical bent, penchant for classical allusions, and shift-gear, em-dash syntax. This is a tidal collection with poems that are wavelike in their formation, breaking and falling abruptly or gently rinsing the shore, all in a dance of creation and erasure. The poems' speakers question cruelty, desire, regret, and possibility, often through interaction with the natural world, whether a sacred grove or a mutilated bird. Phillips' masterful ordering of the poems evokes connection through themes and imagery, and produces an overall sensation of rhythmic rising and falling. Although Phillips' poems are challenging, their fearless questioning and fierce exploration prod the reader to think. They also, occasionally, give up such simple and rewarding nuggets of wisdom as "some mistakes, given time, don't seem mistakes-- / I'm counting on that; others though perhaps / a little bit still worth being sorry for, / lose force." Riding Westward offers an expansion of mind that can only be compared to riding out into the boundaryless field of vision our Western plains offer. Janet St. John
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (April 18, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374250030
• ISBN-13: 978-0374250034
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,661,949 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carl Phillips is the author of 9 previous books of poems, including Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems, 1986-2006; Riding Westward; and The Rest of Love, a National Book Award Finalist. His most recent collection, Speak Low, is a 2009 National Book Award Finalist. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, July 23, 2010

By 

Franciscondine - See all my reviews

This review is from: Riding Westward: Poems (Hardcover)

This, like most of the rest of Carl Phillips' work, makes the reader work towards meaning and the unmasking of desire. The density of language and the "baroque" sentence structure urge the reader to delve into the semantics and syntax of passion and longing. One thing I have always appreciated about Phillips' poetry is the incredible demand upon the reader: it's a work/collaboration between the reader and the author, rather than a one-way street of meaning-creation.

Thus what might seem cruel and sordid on the face of it becomes an incredible legend to a map of longing and emotional upheaval (or more than one read: one reviewer calls attention to same sex desire as a problematic aspect of the work; lack of earnest engagement -- or of understanding -- shouldn't be an excuse for airing one's barely concealed homophobia, in my opinion). As a reader, one must be willing to read the map and strive to make the journey suggested by the words, by the lines of desire. Cruelty, as a recurring image or trope, becomes part of a sorrowful process of becoming, of dealing with oneself and of literally (f)laying oneself on the page.

6 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Linda Jo Smith, Book Review Editor, Sisters~Nineties Literary Group, September 16, 2006

By 

Linda Jo Smith - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Riding Westward: Poems (Hardcover)

After reading and re-reading Riding Westward: Poems I finally got some semblance of coherence. At first, I blamed myself for being so structured in my poetic thinking...like is this a sestina or a pantoum? or am I just not deep enough to get it? or why are the sentences in this poem indented without symmetry or fluency?

Carl Phillips is lauded for his imagery as he was a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and recipient of a American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. I guess you have to be in the club.

There was a title I liked: "Radiance Versus Ordinary Light," but I didn't find the poem illuminating. "The Smell of Hay" stimulated my memory of how hay smells but the poem makes no reference to hay, or the animals who eat hay, or what the hay (obviously I didn't get it)! "Ocean" described the writer's obession for a man so I was grateful that I got the redundant codependency message. "Bow Down" impressed me as a poem about a self loather looking for the slightest hint of affection from someone who holds him in contempt as he bends over.

In conclusion, my impression of this book is that there is some sordid preoccupation with male genitalia with a touch of mental cruelty masked in images of birds and their winged ability to elude tangible, confining relationships.