Crossing State Lines: An American Renga - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374532745 ISBN 13: 9780374532741

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011

Synopsis

A collaborative poem about America, from fifty-four of our best poets

Crossing State Lines An American Renga is a poetic relay race across the continent: fifty-four poets responding to ideas of America--and to each other. This is a collaborative journey of impressions--from the election and inauguration of President Obama, through foreclosures, job losses, chords of country music, and bombs in Baghdad, to a poet-soldier's rifle-sight in Afghanistan.

The renga itself, in the ancient tradition of Japanese linked verse, provides the form of this historic conversation among the poets, as they meditate, within ten lines, on a moment in America. Crossing State Lines begins with Robert Pinsky's recounting of a line of poetry by Lincoln as fall deepens and "maples / kindle in the East," and ends some five hundred lines later, with Robert Hass's "greeny April" on the Pacific coast.

All proceeds from sales go to America: Now and Here.

About this title

About the Author

The renga was overseen by BOB HOLMAN and CAROL MUSKE-DUKES, co-curators of the poetry stream of America: Now and Here, which is bringing art and artists to large and small communities across America.

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374532745
• ISBN 13: 9780374532741
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 62
• Editor: Muske-Dukes Carol