Rift (Arkansas Poetry Series): Poems (University of Arkansas Press Poetry Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557288658 ISBN 13: 9781557288653

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press, 2008

Synopsis

Barbara Helfgott Hyett's new collection considers, from close and afar, the elemental forces coming to bear on human character in our time. In one sense a personal explication of a long marriage and its betrayal, these stunning poems take solace in nature's steadfastness, and in the prospect of a newly resilient self, awakened to the predicament of a battered world. The title poem spills across the face of history--9/11, Hiroshima, the harrowing geological formation of earth, the sudden appearance of cave art, and ultimately, the uncertainty of God. The Daphne and Apollo sequence invents fourteen speakers, including a chisel, a river god, the sculptor, Bernini, and the poet, Ovid, each telling his own story as together they deconstruct the longstanding myth of lust gone awry. Such is the imaginative, kaleidoscopic process of Rift, in which acts of observation shatter and shift our view of experience. While we ache for the loss in these poems, Helfgott Hyett risks such honest grief that redemption comes, free standing and moral, on its own.

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Helfgott Hyett is a cofounder of the Writer's Room of Boston and is currently the director of POEMWORKS: The Workshop for Publishing Poets. She has taught at Boston University, MIT, and Harvard University. The author of four collections of poetry including The Tracks We Leave, Poems on Endangered Wildlife of North America, and The Double Reckoning of Christopher Columbus, she has worked as a visiting poet in schools all over Massachusetts. Her programs with students, teachers, and families include reading and writing workshops in childhood memory, parenting, and watchfulness.

From the Inside Flap

Barbara Helfgott Hyett's new collection considers, from close and afar, the elemental forces coming to bear on human character in our time. In one sense a personal explication of a long marriage and its betrayal, these stunning poems take solace in nature's steadfastness, and in the prospect of a newly resilient self, awakened to the predicament of a battered world. The title poem spills across the face of history?9/11, Hiroshima, the harrowing geological formation of earth, the sudden appearance of cave art, and ultimately, the uncertainty of God. The Daphne and Apollo sequence invents fourteen speakers, including a chisel, a river god, the sculptor, Bernini, and the poet, Ovid, each telling his own story as together they deconstruct the longstanding myth of lust gone awry. Such is the imaginative, kaleidoscopic process of Rift, in which acts of observation shatter and shift our view of experience. While we ache for the loss in these poems, Helfgott Hyett risks such honest grief that redemption comes, free standing and moral, on its own.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1557288658
• ISBN 13: 9781557288653
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 80