Nostalgias Thread Ten Poems by Freisinger Randall (2 results)

Soft cover. Condition: As New. 1st Edition. 38 pages. Signed by the author on the title page. Like new condition overall. Hardly any wear. Pages very are clean and tight. No writing or marking. No stains or odors. Signed by Author(s).

Softcover. Condition: New. Product Description The poems in Nostalgia's Thread offer an accessible and provocative reconsideration of the American experience as depicted in ten of Rockwell's best-known paintings. Arguably the only serious collection of poems inspired by Norman Rockwell's images, they were conceived just prior to the attacks of September 11th, 2001, and written in their wake.These poems remind us that visual art is never static, the beholder's eye never innocent. They bear witness to the fact that each cultural era must reinterpret its rich artistic inheritance within the context of its current collective experience. With unflinching honesty and deep compassion, these poems present a personal and national past which is both comforting and disturbing, both "nostalgias thread" and "the barbed wire / of memory." Review "I believed--before reading these wonderful poems--that I knew a thing or two about nostalgia. About how 'a painting invites you to step into/its frame and complete the story.' Which Randall Freisinger does. And, as with all essential 'telling,' this collection reverberates in ways so wholly unanticipated that I hauled out the art books, enchanted, really, by the remarkable transformation that had just occurred." (Jack Driscoll, author of "How Like an Angel")"The poem 'Freedom of Speech (1943)' alone is worth holding onto this small book forever. Other readers might say the same of any other poem here, each one a song to the tough, sweet, enjoyable, and painful battles of our lives. Read this. Freisinger's lyricism, narrative drive, and wit of language make sure we understand that this books is less an art critique than it is a literary tour de force." (Robert Stewart, editor of "New Letters")"Randall Freisinger's beautiful suite of poems on--or really from--Norman Rockwell's iconic Saturday Evening Post covers is a moving interrogation of longing and loss. Together, the poems form a meditation on innocence, its reality and fantasy in personal and public life. It's a classic American subject, rendered here with passion and immediacy." (Patricia Hampl, author of "The Florists Daughter") About the Author "Nostalgia's Thread" is Randall R. Freisinger's third chapbook-length collection of poetry. His two previous chapbooks are "Hand Shadows" (Green Tower Press, 1988) and "Running Patterns", which won the Flume Press Chapbook Award in 1985. His full-length book, "Plato's Breath", won the May Swenson Poetry Award from Utah State University Press in 1996. His poems have appeared for over forty years in numerous literary magazines and anthologies and have been nominated four times for a Pushcart Prize. He is Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric, Literature, and Creative Writing at Michigan Technological University and lives with his wife, Jill Burkland, on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Upper Michigan. Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. At the gallery, you watch a man pause before one of Rockwell's famous Four Freedoms,the centerpiece, your rented headphones tell you, of this retrospective for and aboutthe American people. In the frame, a man, by appearance common and perhaps unaccustomedto speaking in public, has risen to his feet at a small town meeting to saywhat is on his mind to his fellow townspeople who have turned their gaze on him withobvious respect and affection.And just as a painting invites you to step into its frame and complete the story, so do those who stand before a work of art in still and silent witness. The man who has paused, for example. Because of the time of day and his careless choice of clothes, perhapshe is recently retired. Perhaps he has come to a point in his life when he feels invisibleto the rest of the hurly-burly world. You see how he wears fatigue like an enlarged hearton his sleeve,