
Collected Poems 1953-1983
Lucien Stryk(Author)
Swallow Press
Published on 31. January 1985
Book
Paperback/Softback
216 pages
978-0-8040-0856-3 (ISBN)
Description
Lucien Stryk's poetry is made of simple things-frost on a windowpane at morning, ducks moving across a pond, a neighbor's fuss over his lawn-set into language that is at once direct and powerful.
Years of translating Zen poems and religious texts have helped give Stryk a special sense of the particular, a feel for those details which, because they are so much a part of our lives, seem to define us. Stryk's poetry is neither an attempt to surpass these details nor an attempt to give them significance. It is an activity that exists among them, as ordinary-yet as important-as breath. Stryk's poetic power rests in the sureness of plain speech and his insistence on a direct, sympathetic attention to the world we actually inhabit.
Collected Poems, a gathering of three decades of work, contains nearly all Stryk's poems, including the best of his Zen translations and a book-length section of new poetry. This book is a revelation of the wonderful amid the familiar by a poet whose language and vision have found their maturity.
Years of translating Zen poems and religious texts have helped give Stryk a special sense of the particular, a feel for those details which, because they are so much a part of our lives, seem to define us. Stryk's poetry is neither an attempt to surpass these details nor an attempt to give them significance. It is an activity that exists among them, as ordinary-yet as important-as breath. Stryk's poetic power rests in the sureness of plain speech and his insistence on a direct, sympathetic attention to the world we actually inhabit.
Collected Poems, a gathering of three decades of work, contains nearly all Stryk's poems, including the best of his Zen translations and a book-length section of new poetry. This book is a revelation of the wonderful amid the familiar by a poet whose language and vision have found their maturity.
Reviews / Votes
"Like Japanese art, the poetry of Lucien Stryk is spare, compressed, and simple-minimalist art at its very best. But Stryk is no Japanese, and his representations of tornadoes, elm trees, willows, and farms revitalize these primary images of midland America. Without them there could be no Midwest; and Stryk deserves the gratitude of his readers for helping to rescue this precious world from oblivion." (Midamerica XII)More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Ohio
United States
Publishing group
Ohio University Press
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 214 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
254 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8040-0856-3 (9780804008563)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Lucien Stryk is the prize-winning author and editor of more than two dozen volumes of poetry, translations, and edited collections.