Things and Flesh [Paperback]

Linda Gregg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

Throughout Things and Flesh, there is a wonderful sense of song, a kind of ringing up and down the scales of being. Here, Linda Gregg engages with the searches and findings of both the intellect and the body. This is poetry beautiful in its attention to the things and flesh of this world, to a life of passionate maturity and substance and the mysteries found within.

Loss is a constant companion in Things and Flesh as the poet explores what lesson can be found in "the way this new silence lasts." What all the poems accomplish is to carry the grief we must all by nature endure. They carry our grief across boundaries, over time, and perhaps even beyond, into what used to be called "salvation"--but which Gregg now indicates is instead the place where poetry is made. the consolations are hard won, but no less triumphant.

Things and Flesh is a collection that again demonstrates how, as Joseph Brodsky said of her earlier work, "The blinding intensity of Ms. Gregg's lines stain the reader's psyche the way lightning or heartbreak do."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starting from heartbreak and moving towards devotion, Gregg's fifth book of poems continues a project of formidable lyrical sincerity. Gregg (Chosen by the Lion) remains prompted by terrible disappointments, romantic and otherwise: sometimes she finds solace in Kafkaesque precision, announcing, "it is enough... that the arrow fit/ exactly into the wound it makes." Often Gregg's passion and desolation send her to the language of religion: "Surely the people God loves most,/ and trusts more, are passionate," she proclaims without irony. Her unswerving attentions become a kind of prayer: "There is a flower. We call it God./ It closes and opens and dies./ We still call it God." Gregg likes to insist on the divine nature of erotic love, even on the divinity of failed romance. She brings these preoccupations to her travel poems, from the mountains of Greece to the back roads of Arkansas, lonesome journeys broken up by fleeting visions of joy, such as "the young men [who] ride their horses fast/ on the wet sands of Pangaritis." Along with these poems of observation and locale, tributes to poets like George Oppen and Joseph Brodsky keep the volume from being what might otherwise seem self-absorbed. In the end, Gregg asks whether "passion adds size/ but allows too much harm," then celebrates "poems of time/ now and time then, each/ containing the other carefully." (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"I consider Linda Gregg one of the best American poets, and I value the neatness of design in her poems, as well as the energy of each line."--Czeslaw Milosz, in A Book of Luminous Things

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Product Details

• Paperback: 72 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press; 1 edition (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555972934
• ISBN-13: 978-1555972936
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,628,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best American poets, October 3, 1999

By 

Richard Tayson ([e-mail]) (New York City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Things and Flesh (Paperback)

Gregg's poems show us that when we are least aware of it the universe is teaching us. That in the simplest activities of living (getting quilt-tops backed, walking across Brooklyn Bridge, preparing a meal) are truths, nearly hidden, which lead toward a flowering of the soul, a climbing up toward passion. "Things and Flesh" is Gregg's best work since "Too Bright to See."

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Poetry of Illumination and the 'Examined Life', June 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Things and Flesh (Paperback)

Not all poets nor readers of poetry for that matter are interested in the 'examined life' but Linda Gregg is and has been since the publication of her first book of poetry. In her latest book 'Things and Flesh', she continues this examination. Her topics are life, death, love, betrayal, good and evil- all that matters. Hers is the voice of the lyrical poet who uses images from her daily life experiences to question the relationship between knowing and imagining-between experience and hope. Gregg is a great utilizer of Western myths to explore our being 'self conscious' and her myth poems have a coherency and immediacy which are illuminating. In this book she uses both Greek and Southeast Asia locations and mythologies to examine the predicaments of our lives. In our world filled with noise and over-stimulation it is a relief to reach for this book and listen to Gregg's voice of intelligent contemplation.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Nearly Perfect Book, June 2, 2000

By 

Dale W. Boyer (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Things and Flesh (Paperback)

One of the most exciting book of poetry I've read in a long time. Gregg's poems are so simple and direct, so witty and intelligent, and have such freshness of perception and clarity of thought that I feel I'm in the presence of a true master. One or two of them feel like poems I'd love to have read when I die, so beautifully stated and all-encompasing are they. I have no idea where the first two reviewers are coming from, but this to me feels like truly great work, certainly some of Gregg's best. If you're looking for some of the best in contemporary poetry, look no further.