Zero Meridian: Poems (New Criterion Series) [Hardcover]

Deborah Warren (Author)

Book Description

Series: New Criterion Series | Publication Date: September 24, 2004

In 2001, Ivan R. Dee began publication of the annual New Criterion Poetry Prize-winner. For 2004 the prize has been awarded to Deborah Warren. Ms. Warren's poems combine imagination with intelligence, music with emotional energy. The language sparkles in poem after poem. --Dana Gioia. Warren is among the very finest American poets who still observe the strictures of meter and rhyme. She informs her work with lively feeling, wit, wisdom, and memorable music; she keeps us sitting up and interested. --X. J. Kennedy.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Warren's metrically and formally well-mannered poems--a great many of them sonnets--consistently demonstrate the wit and pith that the revival of formal verse has brought back to American poetry. The wit shows in a capacity for sustaining metaphor until it manifests its pith. In "Gibbon Motion," Warren posits that the "bright glissade" of the ape's motion contains "aches and agonies / like mine"--a commonplace bit of anthropomorphism, save that it leads her to suspect that the reader is "like him--like me" deserving sympathy and identification; here real humanism, not animal-rights sentimentality, arises out of appreciation for the nonhuman. Warren's poetry is profoundly humanist, full of realizations that the world is, after all, our home, and that all we have to deal with it is the imagination: "To take the measure of / anything that matters, we rely / on nothing--things like longitude and love." Through classical clarity, including many references to the ancient Greeks and Romans, she makes us better humanists for having read her. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

Through classical clarity…she makes us better humanists for having read her. (Booklist )

Her poems are polished and pristine in formal structure, but they take emotional chances that break boundaries. (Foreword Magazine )

Warren promises to be [a] brilliant late-bloomer. (R.S. Gwynn The Hudson Review )

Her poems combine imagination with intelligence, music with emotional energy. The language sparkles in poem after poem. (Dana Gioia )

Among the very finest American poets.... Informs her work with lively feeling, wit, wisdom, and memorable music; she keeps us sitting up and interested. (X. J. Kennedy )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 100 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee (September 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566635969
• ISBN-13: 978-1566635967
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,052,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars not my kind of poetry, December 29, 2009

By 

[e-mail] "[e-mail]" (Beaumont, tx USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Zero Meridian: Poems (New Criterion Series) (Hardcover)

I found Deborah Warren's book of poems to be a bit too academic for my taste. I prefer poetry that speaks to the everyman and Warren seemed to speak to the professional academic. I prefer poetry more along the lines of R.S Gwynn, David Mason, Kim Addonizio, etc. That being said, I did find a certain grace and strength in a few of her poems, specifically, "Anna, Emma", "Roof-Walker", and "Jealousy."

4.0 out of 5 stars Poetry as it Should be Written, March 30, 2008

By 

Avital Pilpel "classics_lover" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Zero Meridian: Poems (New Criterion Series) (Hardcover)

Poetry is a craft, not (only) an art. It is not about "expressing your feelings" or "being yourself"--at least not if you want the reader to undestand the poem.

It is about using the English language to make a point about the human condition, using the resources of the language--metaphor, simile, cadence, metric, etc., etc.--to turn your vague observation into a pointed and memorable one.

These poems do just that. Classical in form (most of them rhyme, many are sonnets), they make interesting, indeed sometimes very surprising, points about the human condition. For example, from "Nakedness":

"But you're not really naked if you know
somebody could be watching. Let him stare;
youve got your wits about you for defenses.
Nakedness is being unaware"

There are many such memorable and interesting examples in Ms. Warren's poems. Not all are immortal masterpieces, of course--perhaps NONE are, as masterpieces are not made to order. But they are all good, showing both technical skill and insight into the human condition.