Gondwana : and other poems / Nathaniel Tarn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tarn, Nathaniel, author.

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

125 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

First American paperback edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : New Directions Publishing Coporation, 2017.

Summary:

Gondwana: an ancient supercontinent dispersed into fragments. Contemplating the ethereal blue ice of Antarctica, once part of it, Nathaniel Tarn writes in the opening section of his magnificent collection: "They said back then/there was a frozen continent/in those high latitudes encircling globe; / are you moving toward it?" From there, the rising and falling stairs at Fez in Morocco meld into a cantata on marriage, empire, and the meditational nature of climbing. In a series of beautiful, short poems "Il Piccolo Paradiso," Tarn creates a haven of home, bird flight, and innervating light. In another section, the heroic WWII fighter pilot Lydia Litvyak is personified as Eurydice speaking to her lover captain, Orpheus. The book concludes with the powerful poems of "Exitus Generis Humani," its polyphonic lines slowly pouring over the reader in a mournful, yet often humorous, reverie that reveals allegiance to Earth as the essential divinity, while calling for radical change if we want to prevent a definitive ending. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Gondwana

Gondwana 3

2 The Stairs at Fez

Birds: Bosque del Apache, NM 15

Romancero (Daoist) 17

Occupy Santa Fe, Her Afghan Night 18

Fact Lines 20

Nerval's Maidenhair (Fern) 22

In Love with the Queen of Amherst 24

Old Friedrich, Sils-Maria, 06.30.1928 28

The Stairs at Fez 31

3 Il Piccolo Paradiso

Il Piccolo 39

In a State 41

Reading through Sleep 43

Moment 45

A Spider's Prisoner 47

Veil 49

The Price 51

Angels 53

Thing 55

Maya 56

Books Falling 58

Anomia 59

Sleeper 61

Arrival 62

Heart. Mode Recall 64

Definition 66

4 Fighter Pilots

(Eurydice, Sr. Lt., Rising in Re & To: Orpheus, Capt., Setting) 69

5 Exitus Generis Humani

E. G. H., I

1 Visitor 85

2 Torture: A Rage 87

3 Vital Signs (the Poltergeist) 89

4 Burial Mound North 91

5 Divas 93

6 Lungs Floating, Slick 95

7 Mammoth Excretions 97

8 Cold Unmistakable 99

9 Laughing, Singing, Praying Trees 101

E. G. H., II

A As if Philosophy 103

B Responses 105

C Hootless at Heart & Flying 107

E. G. H., III

I Paris Old 108

II The Homer 109

III The Guest 110

IV For MacDiarmid of that Ilk / The Passing 112

V The Olson Thing / Nihil Obstat? / The Passing 114

VI The Promises 116

VII Individuality, Solitudes 117

VIII Recently Assayed 119

IX The Longing & Desire for Justice Condign to the End: A Preseason Sale 121

X Die Unendlichen 123.

Notes:

"A New Directions paperbook original."

"NDP1381"

ISBN:

9780811225021

081122502X

OCLC:

978252012