In this Book
- Full Catastrophe Living
- Book
- 2009
- Published by: University of Iowa Press
- Series: Iowa Poetry Prize
summary
Merging the spirits of Don Quixote, Shakespearean fools, Theodore Roethke, Frank O’Hara, James Merrill, and the Marx Brothers, Zach Savich’s first book does more than showcase the innovative fluency of its roving forms and moods: these poetic hybrids are not hothouse blossoms but minotaurs. With ebullient intelligence and high-stakes insistence on the panic, lust, and suffering of the sensual world, Full Catastrophe Living uses the self as an instrument to investigate art, love, and the hardest honesty.
In meditations, songs, slapstick sequences, sonnets, narratives, and tightly carved fragments, Savich explores the conflicts between romance and reality, between inventing a new world and staying true to this one. Relishing both traditional and experimental poetics, he takes refreshing, ecumenical risks to show the “strange grace / of bells that ring with a rag’s polishing.” Like a Fourth of July band conductor guiding planes to land, his poetic wit alters what’s real. This book will change the ways that readers think about poetry, language’s expressive capacity, and the robust world around us.
In meditations, songs, slapstick sequences, sonnets, narratives, and tightly carved fragments, Savich explores the conflicts between romance and reality, between inventing a new world and staying true to this one. Relishing both traditional and experimental poetics, he takes refreshing, ecumenical risks to show the “strange grace / of bells that ring with a rag’s polishing.” Like a Fourth of July band conductor guiding planes to land, his poetic wit alters what’s real. This book will change the ways that readers think about poetry, language’s expressive capacity, and the robust world around us.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Storefront
- p. 2
- Don Quixote
- pp. 4-7
- Real Estate
- p. 15
- November Morning
- p. 17
- Countryside
- p. 19
- Federal Case
- p. 25
- Winter Orange
- p. 26
- Crow Adoration
- p. 28
- Then . . .
- p. 33
- Sidewalk Sale
- p. 34
- Poem for My Wife If We Are Married
- pp. 44-48
- Of Conveniences
- p. 50
- Curtain Light
- p. 51
- Psychic Break
- p. 53
- See Through
- p. 54
- A Dedication
- p. 56
Additional Information
ISBN
9781587298462
Related ISBN(s)
9781587297984
DOI
MARC Record
OCLC
794701532
Pages
72
Launched on MUSE
2012-02-08
Language
English
Open Access
No
Copyright
2009