Tormented Mirror, The (Pitt Poetry Series) - Softcover

Edson, Russell

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822957639 ISBN 13: 9780822957638

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001

Synopsis

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About this title

Review:

"It is not surprising to discover . . . that Edson is an artist as well as a poet. His treatment of language is essentially plastic, verging at time on the cubistic."
--Poetry Magazine

"Edson is the undisputed master of the prose poem. . . . though his poems are nearly always accessible, dealing with the commonplace and commonness of life, they do so in highly uncommon ways, and our assumptions are continually being put topsy-turvy."
--Choice

"His prose poems are brief glimpses into a visionary world with haunting analogies to our own. The tone ranges from weird humor through the poignant and melancholy to the genuinely scary. The images are hard and clear."
--Library Journal

"With 10 previous collections to his credit, Edson is the godfather of the prose poem in America. His work sets a standard for prose poetry that few other practitioners can meet. Most of them don't try, telling anecdotes and offering aesthetic and ethical musings in their prose poems instead of practicing the pure surrealism that is Edson's forte. An Edson prose poem proceeds like a joke, beginning with an odd situation . . . developing with skewed logic, and concluding with some kind of surprise. But Edson's jokes are dreamier than any stand-up comic's, full of sexual and scatological twists and weird metamorphoses. They can elicit laughter, disgust, or both simultaneously, and they defy easy interpretation, for they lack overt symbolism. They are disturbing but often, especially in this book, as dazzling as a good Dali or De Chirico painting."

--Booklist

"Edson's poems, as always, are odd, mysterious and funny ... (The Tormented Mirror) should expand and deepen contemporary knowledge of the prose poem."

--Boston Review

With "The Tormented Mirror", Edson once again shows himself to be a master of the prose poem ... Edson's competent hands make the genre of prose poetry his own by the using the history of a tradition and opening it up for a contemporary audience."

--The Bloomsbury Review

About the Author:

Russell Edson is the author of several collections of poetry, including The Reason Why the Closet-Man is Never Sad (Wesleyan, 1977), Tick Tock (Coffee House Press, 1992), most recently, The Tunnel: Selected Poems (Oberlin, 1994), as well as the novel, Gulping Recital, and The Falling Sickness, four plays. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Frances.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0822957639
• ISBN 13: 9780822957638
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96