Town Life: Poems [Paperback]

Jay Parini (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Most of the poems in Parini's third collection are a conventional celebration of domesticity. One section focuses on the sweetness of paternity and family life; another sings the praises of "the neighborliness of little towns,/ the expectations that are so well met." Parini's version of "America" is a cloying ripoff of Whitman's grandiloquence, uncritical of "smokestacks smudging up the sky, the ten-lane highways that converge and tangle/ in spaghetti loops, the open roads/ that make a desert one more backdrop/ as the trucks roll by, the buses, cars." Still another section is filled with self-portraits at various stages, beginning with his baptism and Little League days, through youth and middle age, till he imagines himself dead and underground, where he is apparently still happy as a clam. Parini's final poems, which explore the poetic tension between Platonic ideals and the particular things of this world, are the meatiest of the lot. He writes very well and often very prettily about his small and sentimental world, but also very forgettably.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

These quiet, contemplative poems find fertile ground in small-town living where "imperious seasons/. . . make us accede/ . . . to larger motions that we make ourselves." Town life is perfectly suited to this poet's muted, self-effacing sensibility, as he seeks to unmask the ordinary and discover "some intimations of the life to come." Perhaps it is just this insistence on seeking regular rhythm in nature that creates a slackness at times in Parini's own rhythms, his own voice. Despite this weakness, there is much to enjoy here, particularly when the poet finds himself in an unfamiliar landscape and must discover "its alphabet of buzz and drip and flutter" and where boundaries are not so well defined.Robert Hudzik, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 79 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co (P); 1st edition (January 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805005773
• ISBN-13: 978-0805005776
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,417,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jay Parini is Axinn Professor of English at Middlebury College, Vermont. His six novels also include Benjamins Crossing and The Apprentice Lover. His volumes of poetry include The Art of Subtraction: New and Selected Poems. In addition to biographies of John Steinbeck, Robert Frost and William Faulkner, he has written a volume of essays on literature and politics, as well as The Art of Teaching. He edited the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature and writes regularly for the Guardian and other publications.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Slim volume worth its weight in gold, January 26, 2009

By 

P. Vaughan Russell "pvaughan1" (Selma, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Town Life: Poems (Paperback)

Some years ago, the "Modern Poerty Association" published the flagship poem of this wonderful writer's book, "Town Life." Jay Parini lifts us to see the sublime in the ordinary and invites us to look and listen to the wonder of our ordinary lives.

Having mislaid the issue that contained this poem,I fell upon the author's email address and wrote to him asking where I might find this work. He was crossing the Atlantic at the time, but took a moment to reply that Amazon.com would be the best source and to thank me for my interest.

Jay Parini is one of those writers that lures us toward reacquainting ourselves with poetry and lets us open our senses to what we enjoyed but have perhaps lost in a "dot.com" world. Kudos to Amazon.com for retaining this fine work.