Published by Fordham University Press, 2010
ISBN 10: 0823231992 ISBN 13: 9780823231997
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
First Edition
Condition: Good. 1st Edition. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages.
Published by Fordham University Press, 2010
ISBN 10: 0823231992 ISBN 13: 9780823231997
Seller: Ergodebooks, Houston, TX, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Good. 1. Product Description Things That No Longer Delight Me is a collection of poems about family and memory. This book is filled with objects. The author writes:I like objects for company,to decorate the plainest spaces, decorumandI amass details, jade bracelet, her animal-printdresses, an oval coral cameo.How do objects counter loneliness, she asks, and speak to us of how to behave?In Things That No Longer Delight Me, lyric is driven by a compulsion or need to collect, in order to make sense of the past and stay connected to it.And what if that connection were to be lost? Confronting loss, the book pieces together a family history from stories fragmented and overheard. It asks: What is hearsay and what is history? It seeks to embody story, or historical detail, in lyric form. Resisting nostalgia, its poems respect what is diminished by grief or loss yet reveal details that hold sway over us and give us continuing pleasure. From Publishers Weekly I will always be fascinated, Chang writes, by details from my grandmother's childhood. The verse and fragmentary prose of this debut describe her family's life in prerevolutionary mainland China and in Hong Kong. Many short poems react to heirlooms, to oral traditions, and photographs; in a concluding sequence set in the present day, the poet shadows her mother and grandmother returning/ to China. ravenous, as if poised/ on a threshold, each street stall a Kodachrome/ from childhood. Chang explores her heritage, and she reimagines lives with devotion and loyalty. One immigrant woman, presumably her grandmother, plays countless games of solitaire. since your husband's death. Chang also draws on international literary sources: the title poem takes its list form from the Japanese memoirist and courtesan Sei Shonagon, and one especially vivid page derives its form from Eugenio Montale. An allegorical sequence entitled Serindia (i.e., roughly, northwestern China) reaches for a spare elegance that reclaims for Asian-Americans the cadence of Ezra Pound's famous Cathay: Having left my father's court,/ I live in the nomads' camp. I wear fur and felt.(Apr.)Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review These poems move with poise and a painterly precision through the realms of history, elegy inheritance and loss. They are a map you can trust--if what you seek is "an eternity," to cross "the narrow portal between seasons" and "be led back out in amazement." I am arrested again and again by the beauty and devotion coursing through these lines.----Tracy K. Smith, What is family history, after all, but the stories we overhear? That is what I thought as I read Leslie C. Chang's Things That No Longer Delight Me with its quiet yet powerful interweaving of past and present, of reclamation and loss, of histories whispered and revealed. Her poetry is, to quote one of her lines, a process of memory and bone. In a field of strong contenders littered with beautifully written poems dedicated to craft, Things That No Longer Delight Me is a book in which craft is put to use for a better purpose; to tell a story which needs to be told. It's a beautifully lyric time machine.----Cornelius Eady, University of Notre DameLeslie Chang's several images of trapped light remind me that if you open a kaleidoscope and shake the contents onto your palm, you will discover an assortment of, say, charms and sequins. In this first book, she has collected ordinary things to dazzle the reader--battered planet, aerogramme, jackdaw in azalea, the requisite jade bracelet--then mixes them into the poetry of family history and personal habit. Things That No Longer Delight Me is sure to delight the reader.----Kimiko Hahn, author of The Narrow Road to the InteriorIn their mix of tenderness, delicacy of observation, their feel for textures, their refined and refining intelligence, all brought to bear by a robust sensibilty that doesn't flinch in.
Published by Fordham University Press, 2010
ISBN 10: 0823231992 ISBN 13: 9780823231997
Seller: booksXpress, Bayonne, NJ, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: new.
Published by Fordham University Press, 2010
ISBN 10: 0823231992 ISBN 13: 9780823231997
Seller: GreatBookPrices, Columbia, MD, U.S.A.
Condition: As New. Unread book in perfect condition.
Published by Fordham University Press, 2010
ISBN 10: 0823231992 ISBN 13: 9780823231997
Seller: Kennys Bookshop and Art Galleries Ltd., Galway, GY, Ireland
Condition: New. 2010. 3rd Edition. hardcover. . . . . .
Published by Fordham University Press, 2010
ISBN 10: 0823231992 ISBN 13: 9780823231997
Seller: GreatBookPrices, Columbia, MD, U.S.A.
Condition: New.
Published by Fordham University Press, 2010
ISBN 10: 0823231992 ISBN 13: 9780823231997
Seller: Kennys Bookstore, Olney, MD, U.S.A.
Condition: New. 2010. 3rd Edition. hardcover. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.