Gaps and Verges (Contemporary Poetry Series) [Hardcover]

Roald Hoffman (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A Nobel Prize-winning chemist and Cornell professor, Hoffmann writes poems fusing a scientist's predilection for precise observation with a poet's lyrical, transformative vision ("Coral outcrops . . . an empress angel fish darts off--reef reflexes meet the finned intruder in this underwater Gaudi cathedral"). Yet the pineal gland, gulls diving for jellyfish and the traumatic infancy of cute-looking koalas do not delimit his poetic concerns. There are searing autobiographical pieces tracing his childhood in Nazi-occupied Poland (he emigrated to the U.S. in 1949) and his relationship with his stepfather in New York. "In Need of Mending," ostensibly about fences, maps the geometry of friendship and hostility. "Opening a Drawer," an apt, humorous meditation on folding shirts, is fundamentally a tender love poem. Despite its share of pretentious or pedantic misfires, this is an impressive collection of serendipitous rewards.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Altitudes Change Attitudes
At A Cocktail Party, The 32d National Meeting Of The...
Be Wanting
Believing
Bora; Bora-bora
Caldo
Carcinoma
Christmas, Or Was It A Birthday
Conduit
Corral: 1
Denizen
Eschatology
Evolution
Grand Unification
Height
Hitchhiking
Human, All-too-human
Hydropathic
If I Forget You Jerusalem
Imposing Prospect
In Need Of Mending
In The Way Of Speaking
Intravenous
Intuition
Jerry-built Forever: 1
Jerry-built Forever: 2
Jerry-built Forever: 3
Jerry-built Forever: 4
Jerry-built Forever: 5
June 1944: 1
June 1944: 2
June 1944: 3
Like A Gas Flame Going Out With The Sound Of Trying For Life
Longing
The Man For Whom Everything Came Easy
Modes Of Representation
Operning A Drawer
Organic, Inorganic
Real
The Social Contract
Some Mornings Everything Goes Right
Somewhere
Stretch Marks: 1
Stretch Marks: 2
Stretch Marks: 3
Stretch Marks: 4
Svoloch
Terrorists
These Pour Obtenir Le Grade De Docteur Es-sciences
Two Fathers
What We Have Learned About The Pineal
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Hardcover: 89 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Florida; First edition (February 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081300943X
• ISBN-13: 978-0813009438
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,745,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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