Explanation of America - Hardcover

Pinsky, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0856353043 ISBN 13: 9780856353048

Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd, 1995

Synopsis

From An Explanation of America:

LAIR
Robert Pinsky

Inexhaustible, delicate, as if

Without source or medium, daylight

Undoes the mind; the infinite,

Empty actual is too bright,

Scattering to where the road

Whispers, through a mile of woods ...

Later, how quiet the house is:

Dusk-like and refined,

The sweet Phoebe-note

Piercing from the trees;

The calm globe of the morning,

Things to read or to write

Ranged on a table; the brain

A dark, stubborn current that breathes

Blood, a deaf wadding,

The hands feeding it paper

And sensations of wood or metal

On its own terms. Trying to read

I persist a while, finish the recognition

By my breath of a dead giant's breath--

Stayed by the space of a rhythm,

Witnessing the blue gulf of the air.

About this title

Review

"[An] ambitious and immensely likable long poem . . . a poem which--a rare thing--seems to combine intimacy and authority."--The New York Times Book Review

"Wise and compassionate. . . . It is one of the most readable long poems in recent memory, graspable by all."--Kenneth Funsten, The Los Angeles Times

"I can't imagine anyone who, after reading An Explanation of America, wouldn't want to return to it again and again."--William H. Pritchard, Poetry

Edition details

• Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0856353043
• ISBN 13: 9780856353048
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 76