- Shopping Bag ( 0 items )
Library Journal
It should come as no surprise after reading this debut collection that Bellows is an artist who works in various media, as committed to the visual arts and music as he is to the written word. His poems are intensely visual, and the long, daring lines enjamb with an intricate music. It is the stories, though, that make Bellows's work special. In an age more given to the lyric voice, his poetry is unapologetically narrative, offering richly drawn accounts of moments in time. Even a series of five ekphrases, after illustrations by Howard Pyle, are full of his own people, places, and stories. Numerous other paintings are enlisted for these poems, as are the music of the symphony, memories of childhood piano lessons, and the curious birdsong of the city: "at once their convoy lifted/and I was surrounded, all around me they exploded,/open and closed/like books." A smart and powerful debut; recommended for contemporary American poetry collections.—Louis McKee
Overview
A debut collection, exhibiting exceptional narrative and lyrical gifts, that explores the realms of memory, human emotion, and the natural world.
These layered, braided narratives combine images of landscape and nature, childhood memories and family history, evoked paintings and performances. Nathaniel Bellows's verse is intimate yet inviting, dark but hopeful: "I could not saw the fallen tree—not all / of it had fallen—because somehow each ...