Core Samples from the World - Softcover

Gander, Forrest; Meeks, Raymond; Iturbide, Graciela; Foglia, Lucas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0811218872 ISBN 13: 9780811218870

Publisher: New Directions, 2011

Synopsis

Forrest Gander s Core Samples from the World is a magnificent compendium of poetry, photography, and essay (a form of Japanese haibun). Collaborating with three acclaimed photographers, Gander explores tensions between the familiar and foreign. His eloquent new work voices an ethical concern for others, exploring empathic relations in which the world itself is fundamental. Taking us around the globe to China, Mexico, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Chile, Core Samples shows how Gander s sharp sense of place has made him the most earthly of our avant-garde, the best geographer of fleshly sites since Olson (Donald Revell, The Colorado Review)."

About this title

Review:

Gander pays attention to nuance. He sees collaborations between the world and self as ethical questions.--Grace Cavalieri

Each section opens with a complex, disorienting poem that re-creates the traveler's experience of being in a place where things don't quite make sense. Then Gander shares stories of things he has seen or heard of. He records his observations as he travels with other writers and exchanges ideas about poetry's ability to transcend borders. The reader is constantly surprised by what comes next -- such as a side trip to Utopia, Va. -- and begins to crave the interruptions, which add freshness and energy to the work

-- (03/06/2012)

Gander has always been an innovative poet, and one deeply concerned with the events, and languages, beyond America's borders. In this, certainly his most accessible, and possibly his most powerful, book, he brings the world's frightening and beautiful strangeness far beyond the edge of the page.

-- (03/06/2012)

About the Author:

Forrest Gander was born in the Mojave Desert and grew up in Virginia. In addition to writing poetry, he has translated works by Coral Bracho, Alfonso D'Aquino, Pura Lopez-Colome, Pablo Neruda, and Jaime Saenz. The recipient of grants from the Library of Congress, the Guggenheim, Howard, Whiting, and United States Artists Foundations, he taught for many years as the AK Seaver Professor of Literary Arts & Comparative Literature at Brown University.

About this edition

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0811218872
• ISBN 13: 9780811218870
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96