In the Unwalled City - Hardcover

Cording, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1639821155 ISBN 13: 9781639821150

Publisher: Slant Books, 2022

Synopsis

In the Unwalled City takes its title from Epicurus, who wrote: "Against other things it is possible to obtain security, but when it comes to death, we human beings all live in an unwalled city." This affecting book-which weaves prose memoir with poetry-explores that feeling of being open to attack-in this case the pain of grief after Robert Cording's thirty-one-year-old son Daniel died.

 

To borrow a phrase from C.S. Lewis, here is "a grief observed," encompassing not only the big questions but also the impact of grief on daily life. For a poet like Cording, one form that grief takes is that of speaking to his son. In "Afterlife," Cording has a vision of his son replying: "let the emptiness remain empty . . . Stop writing down / everything you think I'm telling you. / This is your afterlife, not mine."

 

At the heart of In the Unwalled City is a series of questions: How does loss change a person? How does one chart a new life that both acknowledges a son's death and still finds a way back to delight? How does one now live fully in the unwalled city? 

About this title

About the Author

Robert Cording taught English and creative writing at College of the Holy Cross for thirty-eight years and then worked as a poetry mentor in the Seattle Pacific University MFA program. He has published nine collections of poems, the latest of which is Without My Asking, and a volume of prose on poetry and religion, Finding the World's Fullness. He has been awarded two NEA fellowships in poetry, a Pushcart Prize, and has had work in numerous anthologies, including Poets of the New Century, The Best American Spiritual Writing, The Poetry Anthology, and The Best American Poetry.

Edition details

• Publisher: Slant Books
• Publication date: 2022
• ISBN 10: 1639821155
• ISBN 13: 9781639821150
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 120