This is a book of jazzy, edgy, adventuresome poems from the author of Earthquake Weather and Like Cities, Like Storms. Ever aware, ever vivid, ever focused, Kleinzahler's are some of the finest lyrics being produced in American poetry today. "Pieces of ordinary talk are Kleinzahler's strong suit," as Helen Vendler observed in Parnassus, "because they occur in his glancing, alert rhythms. . . . [His] jaunty skips and riffs solace the ear." Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow presents an experimental poetry of exceptional wit and control.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Kleinzahler's first major collection since Earthquake Weather (1989), which was nominated for an NBCC Award, is his first volume published by a trade press. One of the few contemporary poets clearly influenced by both the Ojectivist tradition and the more formal, academic poets, he combines a meticulous eye ("Peaches redden,/ and at day's end glow as if lit from within/ the way bronze does") with surrealistic perception (objects moved to make room "For the big white cloud spiring across the river"). Short lines and frequent stanza breaks make for quick movement through most of the poems, where all five senses are engaged by edgy rhythms and kinetic images: "his pretty nerves bloom,/ a school of minnows just under the skin." In the estimable "San Francisco/New York," the poet wanders San Francisco after a friend's departure, drawing readers into a used bookshop to smell the dried-out glue of each volume, and, outside, to see as if for the first time gabled roofs, the streetcar, the hills. Addicted to city life, Kleinzahler brings us the homeless, the alcoholic, the distraught. Although there are also enough failed poems?some mere exercises?to form a chapbook, the finest poems reward both first readings and later, closer attention.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In this high-voltage, highly readable new book of poems, Kleinzahler evokes two distinct landscapes, each with its own diction and imagery. The first is a jagged urban space inhabited by the likes of Jimmy the Lush, a place where "tributaries of Amaretto and Schlitz" meander through the broken glass, a world where "Eddie took a shiv in his gut" and old people fall apart "like vintage Studebakers." But set against this tragic cityscape of "bummy" smells and anthrax is an utterly beautiful, "insect-simple" world of nature where "the pattern discloses itself" in the form of damselflies and the "ganglia of dark branches"-a space always available "if you just slowed down." Verbally inventive, Kleinzahler approaches the level of "language poetry," as in this line on Operation Desert Storm: "Assault plasma star launch." Like all good poets, he makes what is "dormant" in the reader become "electric." Highly recommended.
Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, Ill.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, Ill.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
No beef,
By
This review is from: Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow: Poems (Paperback)
The Economist rated this (as did *Helen Vendler*); I don't. For why, see my review of The Strange Hours Travelers Keep. Make those titles more snappy, Kleinzahler! (A good title for the latter would have been Addled Geometry (p69) but I'm afraid the work wouldn't have lived up to it.)
1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Garibaldis and you,
By A Customer
This review is from: Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow: Poems (Paperback)
Augie,I've been trying to remember what it was that you put in those Garibaldis. I know it was tuna, banana peppers, and some kind of cheese. What else? I been a jonesen. Let me know when you get a chance, will ya? Yer a poet and yer rymes got rythem. Your gonna be really famous after you die. don't stop. famous patatoes,
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
