Metaphysical Dog: Poems

Synopsis

National Book Critics Circle Award WinnerA National Book Award FinalistMetaphysical Dog offers a vital, searching collection from one of finest American poets at work todayIn "Those Nights," Frank Bidart writes: "We who could get / somewhere through / words through / sex could not." Words and sex, art and flesh: In Metaphysical Dog, Bidart explores their nexus. The result stands among this deeply adventurous poet's most powerful and achieved work, an emotionally naked, fearlessly candid journey through many of the central axes, the central conflicts, of his life, and ours.Near the end of the book, Bidart writes: In adolescence, you thought your work ancient work: to decipher at last human beings' relation to God. Decipher love. To make what was once whole whole again: or to see why it never should have been thought whole.This "ancient work" reflects what the poet sees as fundamental in human feeling, what psychologists and mystics have called the "hunger for the Absolute"—a hunger as fundamental as any physical hunger. This hunger must confront the elusiveness of the Absolute, our self-deluding, failed glimpses of it. The third section of the book is titled "History is a series of failed revelations."The result is one of the most fascinating and ambitious books of poetry in many years.One of Publishers Weekly's Best Poetry BooksA New York Times Notable BookAn NPR Best Book of the Year

Copyright:

2014

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

128 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780374713386

Related ISBNs:

9780374173616

Publisher:

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Date of Addition:

11/29/24

Copyrighted By:

Frank Bidart

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Poetry, Literature and Fiction, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.