The Measure of Islands

Portada
Wesleyan University Press, 1990 - 65 páginas
Mark Halperin recovers forgotten moments and bygone people in these poems of place and memory. Through personal and historical recollections he fashions images so alive and concrete we regret ever having overlooked them. “We should have missed / nothing. But to the west, past the mountains, / is a town with fish in the streets. Who could imagine / the yellow and orange dots on their backs? Imagine / missing that.”

Loneliness, lack, and wariness permeate these richly textured memories. Potiphar’s wife, Zuleika, recounts her dreams but falters, unable to trust even her own words. “Part of me would fall to her knees in belief / but she is heavy…. / She / draws her gown over her knees, / the cruel curve of her mouth.” She is saved from obscurity but not before exposing the unreliability of memories. Seductive fantasies tempt the narrator’s troubled spirit only to confirm that they are moments long past or impossible. “The weight on my chest is air’s / but monstrously heavy.”
 

Páginas seleccionadas

Contenido

Snowfall
3
Astonishing Tasks
9
March
17
A Face Rises in the Kitchen Window
35
Shores
43
Nightfall
49
Lafcadio Hearn in Matsue
53
Derechos de autor

Términos y frases comunes

Angel Astonishing Tasks Aunt Dunia Backroads Barcelona Benjamin blue breast breath bridge buried burn carp chapbook climb Cows dark robe dogs dots drag dreams drift drinking drunk dull echo eyes face fall Father field flapping flicker flutter foreign garden gate Gentile glasses Goyishe kopf goys grass Hawks of Matsue head Hearn hills horizon's Hummingbird imagine insect Jacob Japan Joseph lake Leah leave legs light lips loneliness look luck magenta Mark Halperin Marseille Measure of Islands mist moon morning mountains mouth Neva night nipple oil flame orange oval palm Place Made Fast plate Potiphar priest's Pushkin Rachel rain recall remember rise rocks rolling sharp Shinji shoulder sister sleep smells smile sodden clothes someone spilling steam stone street talk there's thickened thin trees tucked turn twitch visa wait watch WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY PRESS wife wind window wine wings

Acerca del autor (1990)

MARK HALPERIN became interested in physics and in poetry while at Bard College, from which he was graduated in 1960. He became a junior research physicist, then worked as an electron microscope technician for the Rockefeller Institute while he studied philosophy at the New School. Later, he attended the University of Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop and received his M.F.A. in 1966. He has been a visiting professor of writing at the University of Arizona and at Shimane University, in Matsue, Japan, and is now professor of English at Central Washington University. Halperin has published two other books of poetry, Backroads and A Place Made Fast, in addtion to two chapbooks. He received the Glasscock Award in 1960 and the United States Award of the International Poetry Forum in 1975. He lives in the country outside of Ellensburg, Washington, near the Yakima River.

Información bibliográfica

TítuloThe Measure of Islands
Wesleyan Poetry Series
AutorMark Halperin
Ediciónilustrada
EditorWesleyan University Press, 1990
ISBN081951179X, 9780819511799
Largo65 páginas
  
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