The Dead Alive and Busy (Phoenix Poets Series) (Paperback)

by Alan Shapiro (Author) "Radiant child of Leto, farworking Lord Apollo, with lyre in hand and golden plectrum, you sang to the gods on Mount Olympus almost as soon..." (more)
Key Phrases: The Man

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
With its opening poems, Shapiro's (Mixed Company) seventh collection would seem to be the apex toward which his previous work was heading. Any readers not afraid of strong emotion will be moved by the mix of honesty and na?vet? that fills the book's first 20-odd pages. Shapiro calls his dying parents into focus with the same sort of sensuality that distinguishes Sharon Olds's poems about her children--although his continual references to Greek gods seems a bit overstated. And, unfortunately, his other poems simply don't hold up as well. The pieces in the book's second section are perfectly well crafted, but with the exception of a few poems about his daughter and one about hitchhiking, they are unmemorable. In the third and final section, we face illness and death again as Shapiro describes an unnamed woman dying before her time; once more, our interest is aroused. But while these poems make a serious stab at the brilliance with which this volume began, their lack of specificity prevents the reader from forming a bond. Despite these reservations, this book is recommended for most collections given Shapiro's stature.
-Rochelle Ratner, formerly with "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
...a collection weighted with grief... -- The New York Times Book Review, Michael Hainey

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Product Details

• Paperback: 89 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (April 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226750515
• ISBN-13: 978-0226750514
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,520,447 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a mature, compelling book of poems, August 7, 2000

By A Customer

The Times reviewer is right that THE DEAD ALIVE AND BUSY is "weighted with grief," but that's only the half of it. Shapiro is a master of structure, a poetic maker who understands that what makes grief bearable is the song the poet builds to contain feeling. This volume begins with an extraordinary hymn to Apollo, a poem which points to the way that poetry's work is to marry the pleasures of music to the stuff of human experience -- to sing, in other words, about our suffering, our failures and our nobility. It's a poem that points to this collection's project, and prepares us for the deep humanity, psychological insight, and formal grace of the poems that follow. This is one of the best books of the year.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ghosts of Poetics, Poetics of Ghosts, May 22, 2001

By	Lucas Klein (Beijing) - See all my reviews

Alan Shapiro has, in this volume, created a world where, for better or for worse, the past is not missing: instead, it walks around in our world, befriending us or pestering us, stopping at nothing, even death. And yet these are poems of loss, or loss that will not complete itself, as in Joyce's "absence is the highest form of presence."

Take the poem "Ghost," in which a dead woman speaks to her widower: even the past is haunted by its own past. Or the poems of or to the speaker's dead or dying relatives & loved ones: the touches that have ended in withdrawn hands but remain in lingering feeling.

Shapiro's knowledge of poetry is astounding, & he uses that knowledge (which is, by the way, so much more than mere knowledge) to build subtle, strong, and elegant poetry. He has been doing it for years; his earlier work--excellent as it is--is mere exercize for the power of The Dead Alive and Busy.