Broken land : poems of Brooklyn / edited by Julia Spicher Kasdorf & Michael Tyrell ; foreword by Hal Sirowitz.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kasdorf, Julia, 1962-

Tyrell, Michael.

Center for American Places.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)--Poetry.

Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.).

American poetry--New York (State)--New York.

American poetry.

New York (State)--New York.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

xxxvii, 280 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2007]

Summary:

Broken Land is the first anthology to focus exclusively on verse that celebrates Brooklyn. Edited by poets Julia Spicher Kasdorf and Michael Tyrell, this collection of 135 notable poems reveals the many cultural, ethnic, aesthetic, and religious traditions that have accorded Brooklyn its enduring place in the American psyche. Dazzling in its selections, Broken Land offers poetry from the colonial period to the present, including contributions from the American poets most closely associated with Brooklyn-Walt Whitman, Hart Crane, and Marianne Moore-as well as memorable poems from Elizabeth Bishop, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, George Oppen, and Charles Reznikoff. Also included are a wide range of contemporary works from both established and emerging poets: Derek Walcott, Galway Kinnell, C.K. Williams, Amy Clampitt, Martin Espada, Lisa Jarnot, Marilyn Hacker, Tom Sleigh, D. Nurkse, Donna Masini, Michael S. Harper, Noelle Kocot, Joshua Beckman, and many others.

With its expansive array of poetic styles and voices, Broken Land mirrors the borough's diversity, toughness, and surprising beauty. The requirements for inclusion in this volume were simple: excellent poems that pay tribute in some way to the land that Dutch settlers, translating from the Algonquin, called "Gebroken landt." But it is the phrase emblazoned on borough billboards that best serves to entice readers into entering this book: "Welcome to Brooklyn, Like No Other Place in the World."

Contents:

Introduction: Bridge, Subway, Carnival: The Poetry of Brooklyn

I In Brooklyn, In Paradise / Michael Tyrell, Julia Spicher Kasdorf xv

II Borough of Churches / Julia Spicher Kasdorf xxiv

III Exits from Brooklyn / Michael Tyrell xxx

Part I Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

/ Walt Whitman Sun-down Poem 3

Part II Beginnings: Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries

/ Traditional Lenape The Wallam Olum, Book One 13

/ Henricus Selyns On Mercenary and Unjust Bailiffs 15

Epitaph for Madam Anna Loockermans 15

/ Philip Freneau The Market Girl 51 16

/ Joseph L. Chester Greenwood Cemetery 17

/ W. E. Davenport These Days 20

/ John A. Armstrong A Ditty of Greenpoint 21

/ Walt Whitman The Wallabout Martyrs 22

/ Anonymous The Legend of Coney Island, part 1 23

Part III 1900-1950

/ Sara Teasdale Coney Island 29

/ Jean Davis Our Camilla 30

/ Charles Reznikoff from Rhythms, 7 31

/ Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky Brooklyn Bridge 32

/ Hart Crane Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge 37

/ Mani Leyb I Am... 39

/ Delmore Schwartz The Ballad of the Children of the Czar 41

/ Federico Garcia Lorca Sleepless City (Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne) 45

/ Charles Reznikoff The Bridge 47

God and Messenger 47

/ David Ignatow Get the Gasworks 48

Part IV 1950s

/ Howard Moss Salt Water Taffy 51

/ William Hobart Royce It Happened on the Fourth Avenue Local, Brooklyn, On My 77th Birthday, March 20, 1955 52

/ Elizabeth Bishop Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore 53

/ Lawrence Ferlinghetti 24 from A Coney Island of the Mind 55

/ Marianne Moore Hometown Piece for Messrs. Alston and Reese 56

Part V 1960s

/ Harvey Shapiro National Cold Storage Company 61

/ Frank O'Hara Ave Maria 62

/ Amiri Baraka The Bridge 64

/ David Schubert It is Sticky in the Subway 66

/ George Oppen The Men of Sheepshead 67

/ Derek Walcott A Letter From Brooklyn 68

/ George Oppen Street 70

/ Tony Towle The Allegorical Figure of Brooklyn 71

/ Ted Berrigan Personal Poem #9 72

/ Charles Reznikoff Similes 73

[IIO] 73

Part VI 1970s

/ Hutch Waters Unpaid Bills 77

/ Harvey Shapiro The Synagogue on Kane Street 78

/ Gabriel Preil Moving 79

/ Robert Lowell In the Forties 3 80

/ Muriel Rukeyser Coney Island, from Houdini 81

/ Audre Lorde Cables to Rage Or I've Been Talking on This Street Corner a Hell of a Long Time 82

/ June Jordan For Michael Angelo Thompson 84

/ Diane Di Prima Backyard 86

/ Irving Feldman Leaping Clear 87

/ Enid Dame Flatbush Incantation 90

/ Charles Martin Sharks at the New York Aquarium 92

/ Maurice Kenny Dead Morning in Brooklyn Heights 93

Part VII 1980s

/ June Jordan Grand Army Plaza 97

/ Robert Hershon The Jurors 99

/ Joan Larkin Housework 101

/ C. K. Williams The Regulars 103

/ Leo Vroman About Brooklyn 106

/ Allen Ginsberg Brooklyn College Brain 107

/ Galway Kinnell Fire in Luna Park 108

/ Amy Clampitt Burial in Cypress Hills 109

/ Geoffrey Godbert From The Brooklyn Bridge 111

/ John Wakeman Love in Brooklyn 113

/ Michael S. Harper The Drowning of the Facts of Life 114

/ Menke Katz Tempest in Borough Park 117

/ Diane Kendig Flatbush 1980: A State of the Caribbean in Brooklyn 118

/ Gale Jackson Haiti. new york 119

/ Phillis Levin The Brooklyn Botanic Garden 121

/ Alan Dugan Boast 123

/ Stanley Barkan On the Milkboxes 125

/ Michael Waters Brooklyn Waterfall 127

Part VIII 1990s

/ Daniel Hall Prospect Park 131

/ Enid Dame Riding the D-Train 132

Soup 133

/ Kimiko Hahn Crossing Neptune Ave. 136

/ Hugh Seidman Yes, Yes, Like Us 137

Mother's Day, Coney Island: Metropolitan Jewish Geriatric Home 139

/ Steven Hartman The Future of Patriotic Poems 141

/ David Gershator For Walt and the Lion Tamers 142

/ Donna Masini Getting Out of Where "We Came From 144

Giants in the Earth 145

/ Patricia Spears Jones Halloween Weather (a Suite) 148

/ Hayden Carruth The Hyacinth Garden in Brooklyn 151

/ Fran Castan Authority 153

/ Quentin Rowan Prometheus at Coney Island 155

/ Vijay Seshadri Street Scene 157

/ Juanita Brunk On this Earth 159

/ Cornelius Eady Dread 160

/ Rika Lesser 536 Saratoga Avenue 161

/ Goran Tomcic The Fire 163

/ Hettie Jones You Are What You Eat 164

/ Philip Levine The Unknowable 166

/ Sapphire Some Different Kinda Books 168

/ Shulamit Brooklyn Bodhisattvas 171

Part IX Twenty-first Century

/ Joanna Fuhrwan Freud in Brooklyn 175

/ Martin Espada The Mexican Cabdriver's Poem for His Wife, Who Has Left Him 177

/ Timothy Liu The Brooklyn Botanic Garden 178

/ Jonathan Galassi View 179

/ Jessica Greenbaum Brooklyn Aubade 182

/ Robert Hershon Brooklyn Bridge the Other Way 184

/ Donald Lev Over Brighton 185

Enemies of Time 186

/ Jerry Wemple #39 187

/ Ed Barrett The Living End 189

/ Lisa Jarnot Brooklyn Anchorage 193

/ Joshua Beckman From Something I Expected to Be Different 194

/ Noelle Kocot Brooklyn Sestina: June, 1975 195

/ D. Nurkse Bushwick: Latex Flat 197

/ Ed Ochester Minnie & Barbara 198

/ Jeffrey Harrison A Garbage Can in Brooklyn Full of Books 200

/ Matthew Rohrer From "The World at Night" 202

/ Agha Shahid Ali Bones 203

/ D. Nurkse The Wilson Avenue Kings 205

/ L. S. Asekoff The Widows of Gravesend 206

/ Katherine Lederer In Brooklyn 207

/ Marilyn Hacker Elegy for a Soldier 209

/ Marjorie Maddox Jack Roosevelt 213

/ Maggie Nelson Train to Coney Island 216

/ Martin Espada Coca-Cola and Coco Frio 217

/ Tom Sleigh From Brooklyn Bridge 218

/ Anne Pierson Wiese Last Night in Brooklyn 219

/ Vijay Sheshadri Ailanthus 220

/ Karen Alkalay-Gut Brooklyn 222

/ John Skoyles Uncle Dugan 224

/ Daniel Tobin V. Bridge View 226

A Mosque in Brooklyn 227

/ Matthew Lippman Swell of Flame 228

/ Michael Morse Suburbia 230

/ Nuar Alsadir Walking through Prospect Park with Suzan 231

/ Andrea Baker West Street 233

/ Mary Dilucia The Million Dollar Poem or You Must Change Your Life 234

/ Jonah Winter I'll Have a Manhattan 237

/ David Margolis Life Is Not Complicated and Hard, Life Is Simple and Hard 239

/ Joelle Hann Volcano on Grand Street 241

/ Anthony Lacavaro The Old Italian Neighborhood 243

/ Alicia Jo Rabins Sunday Cafe 245

/ Georgine Sanders Jamaica Bay 247

/ Melissa Beattie-Moss After We Make Love 248.

Notes:

"Published in association with the Center for American Places."

Features 125 poems about Brooklyn, by 115 poets, spanning the 17th century to modern day. Arranged chronologically.

ISBN:

9780814748022

0814748023

9780814748039

0814748031

OCLC:

71329949