Shattering Air (New Poets of America) [Hardcover]

David Biespiel (Author), Stanley Plumly (Foreword)

Book Description

Series: New Poets of America | Publication Date: July 1, 1996

"The imagination in David Biespiel's Shatterin Air is as luminous as the hear is generous."--Stanley Plumly

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Despite the poem whose title claims "Against Romanticism," Biespiel's debut collection is sustained by a search for transcendent, intuitive truths linking nature with human-usually his own- consciousness. These moments are expressed in highly stylized metaphor: "We forget the sunlight's/ Vernal nerves that petition the air." Although he occasionally probes the man-made world of K marts and country music in his quest for internal discovery, Biespiel stays mainly in the natural world. Yet even his subtle descriptions of closely observed natural beauty are put in service of revealing his interior landscape. Glances back at adolescent sexuality in Texas and Oklahoma are vacuumed for metaphysical significance, as in the long poem, "Holy Water": "She was a girl I don't remember,/ Our feet in gulfwater,/ Whiskey, constellations/ Clenching the hour's teeth." This tendency to strain toward profundity, along with Biespiel's frequent reliance on interrogatives and such unconvincing phrases as "the judgeless/ Moan of the sun," lead to a stilted, self-reflective tone that seems aimed more at revealing the poet's sensitivity than at illuminating his experience
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Against Romanticism
At Twenty-eight Thousand Feet
Autumn Of The Body
Before The First Light
The Clock In The Nursery
Constitutional
Country Western
Dancing Children
Dead
The Dying Come Back
Each Touch The Future
The Heat Sours
Hideaway
Holy Water
I Count A Hundred Falling Stars Each Summer
I Think Of Your Eyes
In The Dream I'm Running
It Is Truth And Its Parade
Late June
Lilacs
A Love Story
Nothing But Light On The Mind
Retreat
Ruth In The Fields
Self-portrait As Maniac
That Voice, Those Petals
There Were No Deer In The Thicket
To A Sanderling
Toward Metaphor
Tower
Waiting Room
Walking With Virgil
What Gifts Of Love Or Quiet Joy
White Roses
At Twenty-eight Thousand Feet
In The Dream I'm Running
That Voice, Those Petals
There Were No Deer In The Thicket
Toward Metaphor
Walking With Virgil
White Roses
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Hardcover: 65 pages
• Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd.; 1st edition (July 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880238349
• ISBN-13: 978-1880238349
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,102,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inward & Luminous, October 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Shattering Air (New Poets of America) (Paperback)

Biespiel's first book is subtle and vital. His work, as he says in "A Love Story," "pushes hard as a conscience." I loved the pace of the lines, the richness of the emotional content, the recurring theme of the preciousness of both love and loss, and the unique combination of dense and simple language. Best poems: "There Were No Deer in the Thicket," "I Think of Your Eyes," (which I first read on a PSA Poetry in Motion project in Portland, Oregon), "Autumn of the Body," Tower," and "Constitutional." Shattering Air unites the natural world with the human spirit, in line after line, so that poetry enters one's life as a living element, like blood. When is his next book coming out? I can't wait.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Biespiel's poems are both original and universal., June 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Shattering Air (New Poets of America) (Hardcover)

I'm not sure I read the same book as the reader from Ohio. David Biespiel's first book is both original and universal. The long poem, "Holy Water" is Keatsian in its reverie and Whitmanic in its range. Whereas most new poets want to demonstrate technical, graduate-school dazzle, Biespiel is content to let a quiet, understated, mature, and haunting language penetrate a reader's emotions, to gently lead a reader down a path of revelation. I would say he is the W.S. Merwin of his generation. The best of these mostly love poems are "There Were No Deer in the Thicket," "Holy Water," "Constitutional," "A Love Story," and the frightening narrative "Tower." It's exciting to read work from this new generation of poets. The work of David Biespiel, along with Talvikki Ansel, Christian Wiman, Campbell Mc Grath, and A.V. Christie, is setting the pace for excellence. "Shattering Air" was good the first time I read it; I've since read it again, and the effort is well-rewarded.

5.0 out of 5 stars Biespiel's poems are both original and universal., June 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Shattering Air (New Poets of America) (Hardcover)

I'm not sure I read the same book as the reader from Ohio. David Biespiel's first book is both original and universal. The long poem, "Holy Water" is Keatsian in its reverie and Whitmanic in its range. Whereas most new poets want to demonstrate technical, graduate-school dazzle, Biespiel is content to let a quiet, understated, mature, and haunting language penetrate a reader's emotions, to gently lead a reader down a path of revelation. I would say he is the W.S. Merwin of his generation. The best of these mostly love poems are "There Were No Deer in the Thicket," "Holy Water," "Constitutional," "A Love Story," and the frightening narrative "Tower." It's exciting to read work from this new generation of poets. The work of David Biespiel, along with Talvikki Ansel, Christian Wiman, Campbell Mc Grath, and A.V. Christie, is setting the pace for excellence. "Shattering Air" was good the first time I read it; I've since read it again, and the effort is well-rewarded.