Emperor of Water Clocks, The: Poems - Softcover

Komunyakaa, Yusef

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374536570 ISBN 13: 9780374536572

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016

Synopsis

If I am not Ulysses, l am / his dear, ruthless half-brother." So announces Yusef Komunyakaa early in his lush new collection, The Emperor of Water Clocks. And Ulysses (or his half-brother) is but one of the characters Komunyakaa conjures over the course of this densely lyrical book. Here his speaker observes a doomed court jester; here another recalls Napoleon as the emperor "tells the doctor to cut out his heart / & send it to the empress, Marie-Louise"; and here he is just a man, reflecting on why he'd "rather die a poet / than a warrior." Through these mutations and migrations and permutations and peregrinations, there are constants: Komunyakaa's jazz inflected rhythms, his effortlessly surreal images, his celebration of natural beauty and of love. There is also his insistent inquiry into the structures and struggles of power: not only, say, of king against jester but of man against his own desire, and of the present against the pernicious influence of the past. Another brilliant collection from the man David Wojahn has called one of our "most significant and individual voices," The Emperor of Water Clocks delights, challenges, and satisfies.

About this title

Review:

"A rich, multilayered book that combines threads of fable, literature, music and cultural references to create a new kind of mythology." --Elizabeth Lund, The Washington Post

"Yusef Komunyakaa is one of our period's most significant and individual voices . . . He has a near-revelatory capacity to give himself over to his subject matter and to the taut concision of his free verse . . . Dazzling." --David Wojahn, Poetry on Yusef Komunyakaa

"Probably my favorite living poet. No one else taught me more about how important it was to think about how words make people feel. It's not enough for people to know something is true. They have to feel it's true." --Ta-Nehisi Coates, The New York Times Style Magazine

About the Author:

Yusef Komunyakaa's books of poetry include Neon Vernacular (for which he received the Pulitzer Prize), Talking Dirty to the Gods, Taboo, Warhorses, The Chameleon Couch, and Testimony: A Tribute to Charlie Parker. His plays, performance art, and librettos have been performed internationally and include Wakonda's Dream, Saturnalia, Testimony, and Gilgamesh: A Verse Play. He teaches at New York University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0374536570
• ISBN 13: 9780374536572
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128