Things are Happening (APR Honickman 1st Book Award) [Paperback]

Joshua Beckman (Author), Gerald Stern (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: APR Honickman 1st Book Award | Publication Date: September 1, 1998

The inaugural winner of the annual American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Award.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Joshua Beckman, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize, is one of those poets whose work you mustn't miss. His talent shines in his ability to make disparate events become part of a whole. "Purple Heart Highway" constructs loss as imminent danger ("where a train might mistakenly come") or as the pendulum between routine and chaos ("a gray grinning calmness / from which you can get nothing to wake") or as a sudden realization that threads far back into one's past ("I woke up to a plate full of no options / echoing through the cupped ear of my life / spinning the wheels that wouldn't, / for anything, take me away").

In "Winter's Horizon" the theme of loss seeks--and finds--its own sensibilities. A boy writes a story about a father who rides off into the sunset on his riding lawnmower. The boy feels his story is full of meaning, his mother hates it, and his teacher gives it an A+. Yet the lines between fiction and fact, between father and son, and between desire and loss are only the thinnest membranes: "like an engine / steadily moving away / until it is a thin line / of reverberation / ...and its being gone / gives you a terrible sense / a terrible sense of completeness / a terrible sense that things like this / will continue to happen." --Susan Swartwout

From Library Journal

Winner of a first book prize, this volume has surprisingly few of the flaws one would expect in a debut collection. The book contains only six longish poems, meditations and narrations told simply, directly, and with a rich sense of humor. In an elegy for poet David Avidan, after noting the disinterest of the world "at the news of your death," as children laugh and life goes on, Beckman continues: "the trees became sad,/ not all of them of course,/ but a few in every country,/ and they decided to skip summer/ and drop their leaves right then." "Purple Heart Highway" is a road trip, an adventure, and a love poem to the poet's car: "My car not up to snuff,/ putting along, bad knocking/ when I accelerate." In the end, a breakdownAand hope: "Cars move by and in their presence/ their bright red physicality/ I believe them to be the greatest/ smoothest, most natural things ever./ There is no one to tell me this/ but everything's going to be all right." Recommended.ALouis McKee, Painted Bride Arts Ctr., Philadelphia
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: American Poetry Review; First edition (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966339517
• ISBN-13: 978-0966339512
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,585,802 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intense, insightful, and humerous., October 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Things are Happening (APR Honickman 1st Book Award) (Paperback)

It appears that Kirkus'bias against Gerald Stern has unfortunately led them to unprofessionally trash a bright new poet on the scene. Beckman's work is anything but trite-his words flow, his scenes are graphic, and his subject matter fresh and invigorating. This is a book to read & re-read, and to share with friends. L. David Howe

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars exciting imagry and sensitivity, October 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Things are Happening (APR Honickman 1st Book Award) (Paperback)

"Things are Happening" is a complex and thought invoking collection of poems by a new poet. His imagery is wonderful and he speaks from the heart of his experience with life and words. Well worth the time to read and reread.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beckman: The Legend Continues, May 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Things are Happening (APR Honickman 1st Book Award) (Hardcover)

Beckman. A poet once, a poet always. From the formative years in Madison to the blessed years of Hampshire and the ensuing acclaim of the mature work, Beckman has always been a force to reckon with. Now, with the publication of this volume, Beckman's work is reaching out to the world, which will now find out what many have known for a long time: the man is a poet. No longer does he xerox his poems and bind them in unique ways; no, now the machinery of publishing has taken Beckman and presented him: stunning, unique, essential. Beckman. Now. Always.