Strong Is Your Hold [Paperback]

Galway Kinnell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 8, 2006

Pulitzer Prize winner Galway Kinnell's first new collection of poetry in more than a decade, with a bound-in CD of poems read by the author

Here is the eleventh book of poems by Galway Kinnell, whom the New York Times has called "one of the true master poets of his generation." In this striking and various collection, he gives us poems of intermingling with the natural world, love poems and evocations of sexuality, poems about his father, his children, poet friends, poet heroes, and mythic figures. Included also is "When the Towers Fell," his stunning requiem for those who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

The book's title derives from Walt Whitman's "Last Invocation": "Strong is your hold O mortal flesh, / Strong is your hold O love."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Throughout his long career, Pulitzer Prize– and National Book Award–winner Kinnell has returned to themes of death, love and the New England landscape and in this, his thoughtful and appealing 11th collection (and his first book of new poems in over a decade), these concerns announce themselves from the start: "I, who so often used to wish to float free / of earth now with all my being want to stay." Occasionally the poet veers too far toward silly, snapshot moments, but for the most part Kinnell injects the mundane—blown-out light bulbs, stubborn old nails, a snake residing in a brush pile—with meaning and passion. Readers familiar with Kinnell's poetry will be acquainted with his children, daughter Maud and son Fergus, who appear in many of these poems. Kinnell continues to write about parental love in ways that reflect the everyday and the transcendent, understanding that "His [Fergus'] birth and the birth of his sister / had put me on earth a second time, / with the duty this time to protect them / and to help them to love themselves." At the heart of the book is Kinnell's now-famous long poem about September 11, 2001, and the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, first published in the New Yorker. While it is difficult to imagine, five years later, what art could encompass the evil and human suffering of that terrible day, "When the Towers Fell" treats the subject with reverence, realizing the event to be a sad "corollary, a small instance in the immense/ lineage of the twentieth century's history of violent death." Rendered carefully over 13 harrowing sections, with lines borrowed from Celan, Crane and Whitman (from whom the book's title also comes), among others, the events of that day are recounted and imagined with powerful feelings of empathy and sorrow. A CD of the author reading the book in its entirety is also included. Just as he might at a live reading, Kinnell (A New Selected Poems, 2000) offers introductions and anecdotes before many of the poems on the CD. Like the work itself, Kinnell's voice is strong and soulful, and often tinged with melancholy. Longtime fans and new readers alike will find this collection a powerful addition to an important body of work. (Nov. 8)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In his first new collection (with accompanying CD) in this still new, however tarnished century, Kinnell, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, begins with homey lyrics in praise of an enduring marriage, parenthood, and friendship. These are tranquil poems, sweet, amusing, and wholesomely sexy. Sage, too, as in the charming "Conversation," a witty exchange between the poet and his daughter that contains the aphorism, "--When ordinary things feel odd / and odd things normal, be careful." And, indeed, there is much to beware of, as the poet reveals in penetrating accounts of everyday life-and-death battles and elegies to his lost ones. Kinnell's poems are contained, even plain, but there is mineral power in his freshly turned language, and the carefully stacked kindling of his lines leaps into sky-high conflagrations, most indelibly in the magnificent "When the Towers Fell." Seasoned and forthright, Kinnell wisely turns to nature for instruction, noting "the crawling of new life out of the old, / which is what we have for eternity on earth." Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1St Edition edition (November 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618224971
• ISBN-13: 978-0618224975
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,263,630 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strong Is Your Hold O Mortal Flesh, January 17, 2007

By 

prisrob "pris," (New England USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Strong Is Your Hold (Paperback)

"The book's title derives from Walt Whitman's Last Invocation: Strong is your hold O mortal flesh, / Strong is your hold O love. In 2000, Galway Kinnell, another poet who draws from life, wrote in the preface to "A New Selected Poems": "For many years, I have felt exasperated by my intractable habit of working at certain poems again and again, over long spans of time. But in recent years I have come to accept that, at least in the case of a complex project, this is simply how I write. It makes me think of the digestive process of a Methuselah-ian ruminant animal, one with many many stomachs, that chews its cud for decades (though I don't want to carry this analogy to its logical alimentary end)." This is a typically earthy expression from a writer who, in the exuberant poem "The Bear," evoked a poetic alter ego stalking with knives in his fists and subsisting on "bear blood alone."

Galway Kinnell has been a MacArthur Fellow and the state poet of Vermont. He has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has published several books of translations, including the poetry of Francois Villon and Rainer Maria Rilke. For many years he was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing at New York University. He is currently a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

My best friend introduced me to Galway Kinnell with the poem 'The Bear' and I fell in love with this poet. 'Strong Is Your Hold' is the eleventh book of poems by Galway Kinnell. The New York Times has called him a true master poet of his generation. Included also is 'When the Towers Fell', a requiem for those who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. This book of poems is so special to me. It speaks of relationships; family, lovers, father and child, man and wife, sister and brother, friends, and heroes.

There are 24 remarkable poems in the set and one poem for the ages that will forever stand on its own, 'When The Towers Fall'. The last stanza speaks to me as no others about our fellow man and that terrible day;


In our minds the glassy blocks succumb over and over
slamming down floor by floor into themselves
blowing up as if in reverse, exploding.

downward and rolling downward'
the way, in the days of the gods, a god
might rage through the streets, overtaking the fleeing

As each tower goes down, it concentrates
into itself transforms itself
infinitely slowly into a black hole

infinitesimally small: mass
without space, where each light
each life, put out, lies down within us.

and my favorite poem 'Promissory Note'

If I die before you
which is all but certain
then in the moment
before you will see me
become someone dead
in a transformation
as quick as a shooting Star
I will cross over into you
and ask you too carry
not only your memories
but mine too until you
too lie down and erase us
both together into oblivion.

"He uses spare, natural imagery to explore death and tragedy, as in the solemn ''When the Towers Fell.'' For enthusiasts with Google-era attention spans, Strong Is Your Hold includes a CD of the professorially voiced poet reading the entire collection." EW

'Strong Is Your Hold' is a book of poems to be revered and to read often. It is to be rejoiced, and to remember our relationships as no others. This is a testament to a man who can put into words those feelings that surface when we truly love. Highly Recommended.
prisrob 1/17/06

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "In our minds the glassy blocks succumb over and over...", December 5, 2006

By 

Luan Gaines "luansos" (Dana Point, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Strong Is Your Hold (Paperback)

After more than a decade, Kinnell has written his eleventh book of poetry, the title derived from Walt Whitman's "Last Invocation". Covering a variety of topics, this volume includes a moving requiem for 9/11 "When the Towers Fell", each selection introspective and thought-provoking.

Kinnell plumbs past, present, love, desire and memory, a poet's perception of perfect and imperfect moments:

"Once when we were playing
hide-and-seek and it was time
to go home, the rest gave up...

I remained hidden as a matter
of honor until the moon rose."
(Hide-and-Seek 1933)

Death is a familiar, accepted with a particular grace that comes from many years of living, marking the seasons, the comings and goings of loved ones:

"This morning did she wake
in the dark, almost used up
by her year of pain?

When her room filled
with daylight, how could she not
have slipped under a spell, with him
next to her, his arms around her..."
(How Could She Not: In Memory of Jane Kenyon 1947-1995)

Not feared, but bartered with, death is yet another stage of the process of life, a bridge:

"If I die before you...

I will cross over into you
and ask you to carry
not only your own memories
but mine too until you
too lie down and erase us
both together into oblivion."
(Promissory Note)

The requiem for the unimaginable, (/11, is painful, poignant and forever touched with the images of loss and disbelief, images burned into the nation's psyche:
"In our minds the glassy blocks succumb over and over
slamming down floor by floor into themselves, blowing up as if in reverse...

As each tower goes down it concentrates into itself, transforms itself
Infinitely slowly into a black hole..."
(When the Towers Fell)

A much awaited collection, Strong Is Your Hold does not disappoint. Luan Gaines/2006.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dubbed a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times, May 5, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strong Is Your Hold: Poems (Paperback)

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Galway Kinnell presents his eleventh poetry collection Strong Is Your Hold, dubbed a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times. The free-verse lyrics revolve around topics ranging from love poems and expressions of sexuality to admiration for the natural world; tales of Kinnell's father, children, fellow poets, and personal heroes; to "When the Towers Fell", Kinnell's somber requiem for those who died in the September 11th attacks. An accompanying audio CD of Kinnell reading his own work rounds out this groundbreaking and highly recommended anthology. "When The Towers Fell": [...] // In our minds the glassy blocks succumb over and over, / slamming down floor by floor into themselves, / blowing up as if in reverse, exploding // downward and rolling outward, / the way, in the days of the gods, a god / might rage through the streets, overtaking the fleeing. // As each tower goes down, it concentrates / into itself, transforms itself / infinitely slowly into a black hole // infinitesimally small: mass / without space, where each light, / each life, put out, lies down within us.