Slag / Mark Sullivan ; introduction by Robert Fink.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sullivan, Mark, 1961-

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Series:

Walt McDonald first-book series in poetry

The Walt McDonald first-book series in poetry

Language:

English

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xii, 74 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lubbock, Tex. : Texas Tech University Press, [2005]

Summary:

The poems in Slag begin with everyday experiences-a glance at a construction site or the boredom of waiting for a bus-and then use such unpromising events to explore what Mexican poet Octavio Paz once called "the dark, forgotten miracle of being alive." Whether meditating on New York's diamond district or the death of the last person to have known Van Gogh, Mark Sullivan's lyric consciousness expands from initial points of contact to ever-broadening associations. The result is an evocative, reflective poetry that recognizes in the slow advance of the loris across its Bronx Zoo cage what it means "to love the world or to fear / it."

Sullivan pays special attention to animals and the natural world, to the visual arts, and to the relentless stimulation of the nation's largest city, his free verse creating a lucid language where slam dunks and Zeno's paradoxes coexist, where the stillness of a snail discovered in a package of spinach reveals "the process that makes the world."

Contents:

Ketchup Bottles, Table and Coat 3

Slow Loris 5

The Peaceable Kingdom 9

Comet 12

Desire Lines 15

Luck 17

Attachment 19

Snail 21

Slag 27

Thales' Principle 30

La Nuit americaine 32

To the Dream Bird 34

Zeno in Paradox 36

Night Ball 38

Instant 40

Variations on a Long Exposure 42

A Vase of Faded Chrysanthemums 44

Vie contemplative-Elle ouvre son livre 49

Just Outside 50

"Longest Life Ends" 51

A Man Receding 53

Recess by Moonlight 55

Stop Motion 58

Revival 61

The Old Neighborhood 63

Diamond District 64

Reserve Heads 66

My Love Feeds the Crows 69

Fragment from an Adoration 72

Study for an Unfinished Landscape 74.

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

0896725472

OCLC:

56794592