“The most remarkable and affecting book of poetry I encountered this year.”—James Wood, The New Yorker
In this daring new work, the poet Alice Oswald strips away the narrative of the Iliad—the anger of Achilles, the story of Helen—in favor of attending to its atmospheres: the extended similes that bring so much of the natural order into the poem and the corresponding litany of the war-dead, most of whom are little more than names but each of whom lives and dies unforgettably and unforgotten in the copious retrospect of Homer’s glance. The resulting poem is a war memorial and a profoundly responsive work that gives new voice to Homer’s level-voiced version of the world. Through a mix of narrative and musical repetition, the sequence becomes a meditation on the loss of human life.“The most remarkable and affecting book of poetry I encountered this year.”—James Wood, The New Yorker
In this daring new work, the poet Alice Oswald strips away the narrative of the Iliad—the anger of Achilles, the story of Helen—in favor of attending to its atmospheres: the extended similes that bring so much of the natural order into the poem and the corresponding litany of the war-dead, most of whom are little more than names but each of whom lives and dies unforgettably and unforgotten in the copious retrospect of Homer’s glance. The resulting poem is a war memorial and a profoundly responsive work that gives new voice to Homer’s level-voiced version of the world. Through a mix of narrative and musical repetition, the sequence becomes a meditation on the loss of human life.
| ISBN-13: | 9780393089813 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 09/03/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 112 |
| File size: | 112 KB |
Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes, a Fall 2010 Discover Great New Writers selection, discusses connecting with readers, Proust, and the “odd correspondence between inheriting a story and inheriting an object.”
Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes, a Fall 2010 Discover Great New Writers selection, talks about connecting with readers, Proust, and the “odd correspondence between inheriting a story and inheriting an object.”
