Litany for the City

by Ryan Teitman, Jane Hirshfield (Foreword by)

Overview

"This is a powerful first collection by a very promising new writer—successfully announcing what will hopefully be a long-lasting presence in contemporary poetry."—MARY: A Journal for New Writing

Selected by Jane Hirshfield from over six hundred manuscripts, Litany for the City is the winner of the tenth annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Of Litany for the City, Hirshfield writes, "This book carries both startling imaginative freedoms and the impulsion of a person navigating the terrain of his life by means of the star-chart and sextant of poems––a winning combination, for me."

Ryan Teitman is a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. He holds an MA and MFA from Indiana University. He currently lives in Berkeley, California.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781934414804
Publisher:	BOA Editions, Ltd.
Publication date:	04/10/2012
Pages:	88
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ryan Teitman: Ryan Teitman was born in Philadelphia and is a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. He received his BA from Penn State Universityand worked as a newspaper reporter in and around Philadelphia before receiving an MFA and MA from Indiana University. His poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Mid-American Review, Ninth Letter, Sycamore Review, and Washington Square, among other publications. He currently lives in Berkeley, California.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Jane Hirshfield

Acknowledgements 2

Little Litany 4

I. Litany for the City 5

Philadelphia, 1976 6
Vespers 8
The Cabinet of Things Swallowed 11
Dear Doctor Franklin 13
Hard Light through Hemlock 15
Ars Poetica 18
Dear Doctor Franklin 21
The City that Swallowed the Sea 23
Cathedrals 25
Dear Doctor Franklin 27
A Sunday Box 30
Notes on the Twenty-first Century 31
Ode, Elegy, Aubade, Psalm 33
Strange Elegy 35
Ephesians 37
Vigils 38
Ode to a Hawk with Wings Burning 41

II. Foreign Films 44

Foreign Film at the Garman Opera House 45
Cinéma Vérité 47
Foreign Film at the Ritz at the Bourse 49

III. Metropolitan Suite 51

Editorial Reviews

In many ways this is a book of devotion, a set of prayers to a world that is both ugly and beautiful—full of sorrow, joy and the bizarre…a powerful first collection by a very promising new writer—successfully announcing what will hopefully be a long-lasting presence in contemporary poetry.”
—Mary: A Journal of New Writing

"Things are changed by how they are used. Even the hot breath of a resolute sigh, trapped under a blanket at the moment of waking transforms into a 'coat of warmth / that I knew could / never fray.'" —Southern Indiana Review

“Litany for the City embodies the scope and complexity of an urban setting, as well as the emotive depth and wonder it is to be human. In the end, it is only this muddled and luscious reside of experience with its form fading into fume that one is left with, and Teitman proves it is more than enough.” —Todd McCarty, Gently Read Literature

“Teitman maps the way only a poet can map, sketching in then blurring out the borders between inner and outer with each line. It is the poetic act of noticing that finds cathedrals everywhere. And language, repetition, is what holds it all together … This book has a heart that goes beyond the strength of its crafting or imagery. It reminds us of what only poetry can do."—The Rumpus

From the Publisher