Thieves of Paradise (Wesleyan Poetry) - Softcover

Komunyakaa, Yusef

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0819564222 ISBN 13: 9780819564221

Publisher: Wesleyan University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Centering on the disorienting experiences of the returning soldier and drawing on multiple traditions, Yusef Komunyakaa's poetry is potent, live, and, like the strains of jazz running through it, an erudite and soulful music.

About this title

Review:

"What is most gratifying about Komunyakaa's [poems] . . . is their power to convince us that the individual imagination is more than equal to the most excruciating historical burden."--New Yorker

"In this first collection since his Pulitzer Prize-winning Neon Vernacular: New & Selected Poems (1994), Komunyakaa brings his lush, propulsive, myth-making language to a wide range of subjects: Charlie Parker and Ishi; the California Indian; the wildlife of Australia and South Africa.... Here, as in the work of kindred spirits the Beats, a deliberately raw poetry is fruitfully thrown in with the cooked. The resulting vision of paradise -- 'the same feeling that drives/ sap through mango leaves, / up into the fruit's sweet/ flesh & stony pit' -- is a compelling one."--Publishers Weekly

"Komunyakaa's heroic attempt to reconcile so many different cultural manifestations, tendencies, and influences reveals nothing short of a desire to heal, through both confrontation and empathy, the wounds of history."--American Book Review

"What is most gratifying about Komunyakaa's [poems] . . . is their power to convince us that the individual imagination is more than equal to the most excruciating historical burden."--New Yorker

"Komunyakaa is a poet of the human heart, in all its joys and horrors, fiercely present as it pounds awy at the center of every human being's consciousness. He enlarges our idea of what poetry is, challenging us to go beyond our own narrow definitions . . . Buy it now, find your own peaceful corner of our shared and imperfect paradise, and prepare yourself to be robbed of all you thought you knew, to experience criminal bliss."--Washington Post Book World

From the Publisher:

Praise for Theives of Paradise
"Komunyakaa is perhaps the single most original poet of his generation, and one of the most brave both in stylistic innovation and commitment to handling difficult subjects and dark emotions. Firmly rooted in a blues vernacular, informed of traditions as diverse as Spanish surrealism, the Harlem literary Renaissance, Modern jazz eclecticism, North Beach San Francisco poetry, and the trickster roles in Yoruba poem-dramas, his new book should cause quite a stir among readers of contemporary verse. And those interested in the politics of race, who take delight in wonderful literary language, his hip inflections and syncopated rhetorical music, will take special notice. Komunyaakaa's work is matchless, a treasure, plain and simple." -- Garrett Hongo

About this edition

• Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0819564222
• ISBN 13: 9780819564221
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 136