Devils & Islands

Poems

Turner Cassity

Publication Year: 2007

As he approaches eighty, Turner Cassity may finally be out of control. His hatchet has never fallen more lethally, meaning if you have the stomach for him he is more enjoyable than ever. Under the blade come Martha Graham, Johann Sebastian Bach, musicologists, tree huggers, Frank Gehry, folk music, folk art of all times and all places, folk. . . . There are, however, his unpredictable sympathies: Edith Wilson, skyscrapers, Pontius Pilate, Pilate’s legionnaires. He obviously has a soft spot for Pop Culture, although he cannot avoid seeing it de haut en bas.

As usual, he is all over the place geographically. One feels he would slash his wrists before he would write a poem about any city on the traditional Grand Tour. Manaus, Campeche, Trieste, Budapest (as destroyed by Godzilla)—these are his places. He has a disturbing willingness to write on both sides of an issue, resembling in this Bernard Shaw. You have to read very carefully to see whether he tips his hand.

One looks forward to Mr. Cassity’s posthumous poems, when he is beyond the reach of libel. For now, at least, we have Devils & Islands.

Published by: Ohio University Press

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Book Details

E-ISBN-13: 9780804040303
Print-ISBN-13: 9780804011037

Publication Year: 2007

Devils & Islands

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

Fantasia on Dummy Keys

Before Clocks Were Digital

After the Fall

Amazonas.com

Erich Wolfgang Korngold

The Last Newsboy

Hitting the Silk

Bargains Are by Definition Faustian

Opposing Colonizations

Robinson Crusoe to Capt. Dreyfus

Energy Crises

A Course in Sax Education

Production Values

Gowns by Adrian

The Garden of Yellow Jack

The Devil and Daedalus

Fashions of 1903

The Last Cigarette Girl

Dance

Free Trade in Mitteleuropa

Where Is Gutzon Borglum Now That We Need Him?

Inventing the Subdivision

The Last Elevator Operator, or, Mr. Otis Regrets

Edith and Woody and Nancy and Ronnie

Fishers of Men

Unto Temptation

Guidelines for a Cover Illustration

Crystal But Not Crystal Ball

Models

The Last Chaperon

Update for Francis Joseph

The Passion of 1934

Administrating

One Third of a Triptych

Self-Guided Tour

Report of the Monuments Commission

Eclogue against Ecology

Soldiers Three in the Big Easy

Afterward

Research Areas

Recommend

Subject Headings

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