William Henry Harrison and Other Poems [Paperback]

David R. Slavitt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2006

"A wonderfully disorienting title for a wonderfully orienting book. Deeply instructive, entirely delightful."-Henry Taylor The prodigiously imaginative mind and penetrating wit of David R. Slavitt are on full display in his newest collection of poetry that is perhaps his most engaging to date. The title poem begins by fooling around-"With three names like that, it sounds as though his mother is calling him and she's really angry"-but then builds into a shrewd, thoughtful account of the life of the ninth U.S. president. A second long poem offers a fresh and very amusing appraisal of the practice of buying, writing, and sending souvenir postcards. In between this pair, there are shorter pieces impressive in their range and tone and theme (be sure to read "Poem without Even One Word") that dazzle in an already glittering body of work. Slavitt's poems can be playful, even silly, and then astonishingly convert levity into earnest urgency. Dark lines glint with the light of intelligence and mirth, even as artful puns and jokes reveal a rueful aspect. The poet gets older but his work is as graceful as ever, the lovable little boy signaling from inside the sometimes-cranky septuagenarian.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Two pieces in Slavitt's new collection speculate that they are jokes (it's debatable whether they're poems, which is, perhaps, what makes them jokes), and the title poem states that its subject was a joke. Not a very funny joke, since it consists of the ninth president's delivering the longest inaugural address ever in a driving rain, getting pneumonia, and eventually dying a month later, making his the shortest presidency. And it's untrue. Harrison was healthy for three weeks before suffering the malady that killed him, "a fictional disease," Slavitt says--so there's the joke, and it's no laff riot, either. It is typical, however, of the humor that ripples through these poems, which tease out sad, wry smiles of rueful sympathy with the human condition so reliably that the poems deepen a reader's humanity. Slavitt's often formally elegant poems gently but firmly face the foolish wisdom, apparently futile exertions, and incredible commonplaces of life, mostly in his own retired professor's existence, but also in the heroic passage of Odysseus and the perdurance of the cosmos. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 84 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State University Press (February 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807131210
• ISBN-13: 978-0807131213
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,332,340 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:

4.0 out of 5 stars Smart and Funny Poetry, August 25, 2007

By 

Okla Elliott (Columbus, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: William Henry Harrison and Other Poems (Paperback)

This new collection by David R Slavitt includes the long title poem, which is odd and not quite like any poem I've ever read, alongside some humorous and experimental shorter poems. This volume also includes some of Slavitt's "thinking-out-loud-in-verse" pieces, which are always a pleasure.

Buy this book. You won't be disappointed.