
Errings
Peter Streckfus(Author)
Fordham University Press
Will be published approx. on 3. March 2014
Book
Hardback
96 pages
978-0-8232-5775-1 (ISBN)
Description
Spoken on the margin between death and birth, reading and writing, separation and union, the poems of Errings address the absent-a lost leader, a remote love, a protege not yet born-and across those distances delineate the motion of consciousness as it passes from one body to the next. "Videos of Fish," the opening sequence, speaks to the spirit of the poet's late father, adapting devices from Dante, Tibetan metaphysical
philosophy, and the biomechanics of the most primitive of vertebrate bodies, the fish, to envision paths of the disembodied soul. "How difficult it is to remain one person," the poet claims, echoing Czeslaw Milosz; in its progress between persons, the collection's regular shifts in mode and form include the purgatorian tercet,
the Japanese poetic diary, didactic verse, the Persian ghazal, the erasure, and the miniature.
THE READER
Experience among the waves allows one to limit the field.
Each year he grew another soul, oblong, slightly pointed at the end, like
an oar, its surface turned to the light.
Blacken now and lift your news into the air.
philosophy, and the biomechanics of the most primitive of vertebrate bodies, the fish, to envision paths of the disembodied soul. "How difficult it is to remain one person," the poet claims, echoing Czeslaw Milosz; in its progress between persons, the collection's regular shifts in mode and form include the purgatorian tercet,
the Japanese poetic diary, didactic verse, the Persian ghazal, the erasure, and the miniature.
THE READER
Experience among the waves allows one to limit the field.
Each year he grew another soul, oblong, slightly pointed at the end, like
an oar, its surface turned to the light.
Blacken now and lift your news into the air.
Reviews / Votes
"In his two collections, Peter Streckfus has made a lyric poetry of the highest order: spacious, luminous, contemplative, filled with strange voyages and miniature epics-he is a seer, a visionary, and yet how effortless this work seems; at its center, a stillness as ardent and searching as anything within memory." -American Academy of Arts and Letters citation for the Rome Prize in Literature "Peter Streckfus's crisp little book, is a delightfully idiosyncratic jewel-box of verbal surprises and minor epiphanies." -- Matthew Ladd -West Branch "A hard won, fully realized, wonderfully eccentric book. Rather than the anxiety of influence, Peter Streckfus vows for a complex, loving embrace of influence. Written at the intersection of the words of father and son, through the echoing world of the father's unpublished novel, Errings is an adventure-full of transport-in dream and in time. This is lovingly tender and smart work." -- -Hank Lazer "Errings offers the best of both the bay side and ocean side of the street. Some of its poems, readers can immediately enter and understand, and others take a bit more archeological digging. Readers will find poems quiet as a bay sunset and as turbulent as Atlantic waves...If you find yourself somewhat lost at sea in this collection on first read, do not swim immediately back to shore. Tread water boldly and curiously with all senses alert and wide open. You will eventually find your way in the language and will be glad you took the extra time." -Poet's Quarterly "... this book dazzles with its vulnerability, its wonder at the fluidity between animal and human, life and death, technology and the natural world - the world with its subtlety, holes, and open spaces." -LA Review of Books "If you read and admired (as I did) Peter Streckfus's Yale-Younger The Cuckoo published a decade back, then it's a no brainer to cozy up to these new acts of collusion while spreading yourself out on green heather." -Coldfront MagazineMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Cloth
Dimensions
Height: 218 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
227 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8232-5775-1 (9780823257751)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Peter Streckfus is Professor of English at George Mason University. He is the author of The Cuckoo, winner of the 2003 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition.
Content
1 Heather Green Videos of Fish Patrimony Erring 2 New Rules of the Oan Era (1372) Suggestions for a New Day (1452) Additional New Rules, Suggestions for a New Day, & Cetera (1502) Una Narrazione A Bridge, The Pilgrims A Bridge, Election 3 The Reader 54 Bildungsroman Time Ghazal Earth and Water The Lake and the Skiff Transmigration Notes Acknowledgements