Here / Sydney Lea.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lea, Sydney, 1942- author.

Contributor:

Laura Jan Meyerson Poetry Fund.

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--21st century.

American poetry.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

138 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Tribeca [New York] : Four Way Books, [2019]

Summary:

"Sydney Lea has always been a poet equally eloquent and wide-eyed before reality. This self-aware book of experience, stock-taking, and memory finds him just now, just here, a person still hopeful in the face of it all, a poet at the height of his powers." --Jane Hirshfield "Because Sydney Lea is a poet who doesn't stand outside his subject, his work is committed, above all, to everything that constitutes connection--nature, community, and family. His latest book is a testament to what can be said, what can be felt at the transition between life and death, the marginal line between what he knows and what he will lose. Although he admits, 'I had a dress rehearsal for death,' his attention to 'the bright whole' governs these poems. Seeing a ruffled grouse dead in the snow, he wonders why 'Death looks so brilliant. Its dead eyes rimmed and white...' It is not so much the recognition of change and loss that Lea appraises, but the consciousness of being itself. Looking closely and surely, as Lea has shown us throughout his long, remarkable career, is how this poet embraces the world around him with gratitude and joy." --Cleopatra Mathis -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

I Old Lessons

Papillons en liberté p. 7

Older Age p. 9

Search Me p. 10

Spilled Milk p. 12

Ukrainian Eggs p. 14

Interior p. 16

Gravitas p. 18

Children's Fall p. 20

Old Lessons p. 22

The Owl and I p. 23

II Poetic License

No Consequence p. 27

News Comes Third p. 29

Chimera p. 31

Machu Picchu p. 33

Little Squalls p. 35

I Keep Going at 20 Below p. 37

I Impugn a Victorian p. 38

Stoicism p. 41

What's to Be Expected? p. 43

Gooka-mol p. 45

Poetic License p. 47

III A Tide Like Grace

Irresolutions p. 51

Fire and Jewel p. 55

Cavaliers p. 58

Gratitude p. 62

The 21st Century p. 65

Annie's Duck Sauce p. 68

Auction p. 71

All Hallows' Eve p. 74

Aesthetics p. 76

A Tide Like Grace p. 78

Memo for 2027: A Love Poem p. 80

IV The View in Late Winter

A Grandson Sleeps on My Chest p. 85

The Long and Short p. 87

Stick Season p. 89

Solace, Stone p. 90

The Seafarer p. 92

Dark Chord p. 94

Easy Wonder p. 96

The View in Late Winter p. 98

Some Postures toward the Rock p. 100

My Wife's Back p. 104

V Gift

Who Knows? That Lifelong Question p. 109

October Moon on Lake p. 116

Snapper p. 117

Earth and Heaven p. 120

Zero Fahrenheit p. 123

On My Love of Country Life p. 125

To a Granddaughter in My Arms p. 128

Mindfulness p. 129

Gift p. 130

Here Itself p. 135.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Laura Jan Meyerson Poetry Fund.

ISBN:

9781945588402

1945588403

OCLC:

1085575434

Publisher Number:

99983581901