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At Beckett's grave / Robin Durnford.

Van Pelt Library PR9199.4.D876 A83 2025
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Durnford, Robin, author.
Series:
Hugh MacLennan poetry series
The Hugh MacLennan poetry series
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989--Poetry.
Beckett, Samuel.
American poetry--21st century.
American poetry.
Genre:
poetry.
Poetry
Poetry.
Physical Description:
ix, 101 pages : illustration ; 20 cm.
Place of Publication:
Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2025]
Summary:
"Our increasingly nihilistic age is marked by profound sorrow. We are grieving institutions, art forms, the natural world, our communities - even our very humanity. We are overwhelmed by lives lost to war, violence, genocide, poverty, natural disasters, and disease. We live with the knowledge that a random occurrence could bring an absurd end to any life at any time. In At Beckett's Grave, Robin Durnford gazes at the granite slab marking the resting place of the Irish playwright. In the middle of the ornate tombstones of an overgrown cemetery in Paris, Durnford finds a powerful metaphor in Samuel Beckett - the artist, the exile, the anti-fascist who joined the French resistance. Beckett's work - and the stark memory of his life - cuts through grandiose self-regard with a razor-sharp message: there is no final meaning. Yet we move forward, regardless. It turns out that the pause--the stage direction central to so many of Beckett's plays--may be the answer. Grief for an absent loved one never truly ends. Grief itself will never end. Yet, the poetic pause creates space for grief to breathe. During that lingering breath, abiding sorrow carves a path toward hope, one word, one poem, at a time. Robin Durnford teaches English literature at John Abbott College and is the author of A Lovely Gutting."-- Provided by publisher.
Other Format:
Online version: Durnford, Robin. At Beckett's grave.
ISBN:
9780228025641
0228025648
OCLC:
1509720454
Publisher Number:
CIPO000267558

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