Scrimmage of Appetite

Overview

If Walt Whitman had come back to face America at the end of the 20th Century, these are the poems he might have written. Whether adapting the long Whitmanian line, reinventing the prose poem, or alternating lyric and prose meditations, Jon Davis has taken the measure of these times and found a world where virtue has been devoured by appetite, where the private and familial have been invaded by the tawdry, the commercial, and the vicious, as if our lives were hotwired to our television sets, our minds crackling ...
See more details below
This Hardcover (1st ed) is Not Available through BN.com
Sending request ...

Overview

If Walt Whitman had come back to face America at the end of the 20th Century, these are the poems he might have written. Whether adapting the long Whitmanian line, reinventing the prose poem, or alternating lyric and prose meditations, Jon Davis has taken the measure of these times and found a world where virtue has been devoured by appetite, where the private and familial have been invaded by the tawdry, the commercial, and the vicious, as if our lives were hotwired to our television sets, our minds crackling with the loose electricity of an experiment gone wrong. In poems that are ambitious and political without being sententious or partisan, Davis turns to the power of words for a way to reconcile the irreconcilable, praising language as a rich, entangled, and inexhaustible source of solace and meaning. With Scrimmage of Appetite, Jon davis has fulfilled Wallace Stevens's image of a poet "merciless / To accomplish the truth in his intelligence."
Read More Show Less

What People Are Saying

Robert Haas
One of the strongest new books I've read in the last year or so is Jon Davis' Scrimmage of Appetite. -- Former U.S. Poet Laureate
Read More Show Less
Read More Show Less

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781884836114
  • Publisher: University of Akron Press, The
  • Publication date: 10/28/1995
  • Series: Akron Series in Poetry
  • Edition description: 1st ed
  • Pages: 102

Table of Contents

Days of Forgetting 3
Memory 4
What Passeth for a God 6
The Turtle: An Eccentric Ode 7
Marriage 9
Fish Magic 11
The Bait 12
Tumult: Second State 14
Cafe 15
The Sound 16
The Frogs 17
Island Life 18
Blues 19
"Mystery Blend" 21
Solo 22
A Story 25
The Sorry Part 31
Gone 33
The New Americans 35
The Year 2000 36
Relativity 38
American Night 40
The Sixties: Two Scenes 43
The Story of My Life 44
In History 46
Contingency 48
The Wheel of Appetite 51
The Hawk. The Road. The Sunlight After Clouds 53
The Levelled Site of the Page 59
The Held Note of the Past 60
The Eye of Delight 61
A Dazzling Incomprehensibility 62
A Sheen, A Radiance 63
Brutal Squares 64
Tokens from a Lost World 66
A Wave 67
The Valley 68
"The Woman" 69
Interiors 70
God's "Malevolent Eye" 71
A Party of Sorts 72
Ravel 73
Sunlight on Stucco 74
Before the Rains 75
Damage 76
A Closet Full of Excruciations 77
A Desperate Longing for Presence 78
A Letter to the Future 80
The Signature 81
The Ritualized Forms 82
Meanwhile 83
The Common Man 85
A Conspiracy of Lilacs 87
A Broth 88
Gold Card 89
Maxim 90
Heaven 91
Like Teeth 92
The Choir of the Actual 93
An American 95
Inside 96
In the Sleep of Reason 98
Oblivion's Mouth 99
In Privacy 100
Read More Show Less

Customer Reviews

Be the first to write a review
( 0 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(0)

4 Star

(0)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(0)

1 Star

(0)

Your Rating:

Your Name: Create a Pen Name or

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked, or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer. However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reviews should not contain any of the following:

  • - HTML tags, profanity, obscenities, vulgarities, or comments that defame anyone
  • - Time-sensitive information such as tour dates, signings, lectures, etc.
  • - Single-word reviews. Other people will read your review to discover why you liked or didn't like the title. Be descriptive.
  • - Comments focusing on the author or that may ruin the ending for others
  • - Phone numbers, addresses, URLs
  • - Pricing and availability information or alternative ordering information
  • - Advertisements or commercial solicitation

Reminder:

  • - By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.
  • - Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.
  • - See Terms of Use for other conditions and disclaimers.
Search for Products You'd Like to Recommend

Recommend other products that relate to your review. Just search for them below and share!

Create a Pen Name

Your Pen Name is your unique identity on BN.com. It will appear on the reviews you write and other website activities. Your Pen Name cannot be edited, changed or deleted once submitted.

 
Your Pen Name can be any combination of alphanumeric characters (plus - and _), and must be at least two characters long.

Continue Anonymously

    If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
    Why is this product inappropriate?
    Comments (optional)