Packing up for paradise : selected poems, 1946-1996 / James Broughton ; edited by Jim Cory.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Broughton, James, 1913-1999.

Contributor:

Cory, Jim.

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Penn Provenance:

Broughton, James, 1913-1999 (autograph) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy 2)

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copies 1-4)

Physical Description:

331 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Santa Rosa : Black Sparrow Press, 1997.

Summary:

The theme of this copious selection from fifty years of James Broughton's poetry is Eros Ascendant and Transcendent. Since that's been Broughton's central theme all along, it's fair to say this book comprises his essential poetic testament.

Broughton's verse is deceptively simple, spirit-deep. Innocence and double-entendre lyric foolery commingle in light verse' that revives the inspired nonsense / crazy wisdom line of Christopher Smart, William Blake and Edward Lear, while Other poems feature the out' glories of romantic ardor, reawakening the rhapsodic warmth of Whitman's Calamus:

Ablaze in the thrusts of desire

we scathed each other with verve burned up our fears of forever steamed ourselves deep in surrender till I lay drenched under scorch and joy cried out through my crown

Wondrous Wondrous the merge

Wondrous the merge of soulmates

the surprises of recognition

Wondrous the flowerings of renewal Wondrous the wings of the air

clapping their happy approval

Whether writing in parable, fairy tale, fable, riddle, ballad, nursery rhyme, children's song, or up-to-the-minute graphic soul-confession, this sly master of a thousand tricks of form -- an ebullient Pan lurking in the libidinal weeds of postmodernism -- is also the one major contemporary poet of whom it can be said his work is almost entirely affirmative, even celebrative. However indecorous, irreverent, challenging of assumption, or audaciously disturbing, James Broughton's poetry always lands squarely on the side of life.

Notes:

"This first edition is published in paper wrappers; there are 200 hardcover trade copies; 100 hardcover copies have been numbered & signed by the author & 20 copies handbound in boards by Earle Gray are lettered A-T & signed by the author"--Colophon.

Filmography: page 331.

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy 2 is hardcover edition numbered and signed by the author, no. 22.

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy 3 is hardcover edition.

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy 4 is paperback edition.

ISBN:

1574230522

1574230530

OCLC:

37675880