Swimming Lessons: New and Selected Poems - Hardcover

Willard, Nancy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0679446397 ISBN 13: 9780679446392

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 1996

Synopsis

In this generous gathering of new poems and work selected from her ten earlier books, the artistry, grace, and sense of wonder that have distinguished Nancy Willard's poetry for the past three decades are displayed in vivid abundance.
Psalms to the puffball, to the wisdom of geese, to bees swarming, and to angels in the snow transport us to the farm country of Michigan and New York. Other poems - for example, "When There Were Trees" - take us to landscapes at once earthy and mythical: "I saw maples fanning the fire in their stars, / heard the coins of the aspens rattling like teeth, / saw cherry trees spraying fountains of light, / smelled the wine my heel pressed from ripe apples."
In Nancy Willard's poems the stuff of everyday life is transformed: bathtubs are "melancholy tureens into which the moon ladles her light broth"; the optometrist's shop, where "from the lit shelves stare a hundred eyeglasses," brings about a charmed discomfort; a dentist's mirror is "a moon caught on a silver baton." Hers is a vision marked by playfulness and close observation, by a questioning both joyful and profound, by the lasting enchantment of a light-filled world.

About this title

About the Author

Nancy Willard teaches in the English department at Vassar College.

From the Back Cover

g and long-awaited book of 30 new poems plus the best from ten of Nancy Willard's previous poetry collection. Here are the finest examples of her diverse style and her unique vision, at once joyful and profound--a welcome collection for longtime fans and a wonderful introduction for newcomers.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Swimming Lessons

New and Selected PoemsBy Nancy Willard

Knopf

Copyright © 1996 Nancy Willard
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780679446392
The Fruit Bat

Because the air has darkened
like bruised fruit, you creep
down the bare branch

where you slept all light long,
gathered into yourself like a fig.
Little madarin woman fleeing

under the stars on bound feet,
when your wings spring open
even you look surprised.

What are the raven's slick feathers
beside these pewter sails
raised in the foundry of your flesh,

burnished by light poured
from a wasted moon and a dipper
brimming with darkness?


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Continues...

Excerpted from Swimming Lessons by Nancy Willard Copyright © 1996 by Nancy Willard. Excerpted by permission.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0679446397
• ISBN 13: 9780679446392
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 206