Star Journal: Selected Poems

by Christopher Buckley

Overview

Star Journal is a selection of poems from Christopher Buckley's twenty previous collections, from 1980 through 2014. Buckley's poetry is unique in its use of current science and cosmology, recent facts and theories mixed in with a lyrical underpinning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822982012
Publisher:	University of Pittsburgh Press
Publication date:	11/11/2016
Series:	Pitt Poetry Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Christopher Buckley has published twenty books of poetry, several chapbooks and limited editions, and three memoirs. He is the editor of six poetry anthologies as well as critical books on the poets Philip Levine, Larry Levis, and Luis Omar Salinas. Buckley is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, two National Endowment for the Arts Grants, a Fulbright Award, four Pushcart prizes, and two awards from the Poetry Society of America, among other awards. Buckley has taught writing and creative writing at several universities, and is emeritus professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside.

Table of Contents

Contents 1979–1997 Why I’m in Favor of a Nuclear Freeze Dust Light, Leaves Halley’s Comet from the West Coast, March 22, 1986 Evening in Santorini Star Journal Prima Facie Midlife Father, 1952 There & Then The Presocratic, Surfing, Breathing Cosmology Blues . . . Camino Cielo Sycamore Canyon Nocturne 1998–2006 Sleep Walk Opera Vacuum Genesis Astronomy Lesson: At Café Menorca 20 Years of Grant Applications & State College Jobs Early Cosmology March 21st & Spring Begins on Benito Juarez’s Birthday in Mexico Photograph of Myself—Monastery of Monte Toro Menorca elv. 1,162 ft. Watchful—Es Castell, Menorca Metaphysical Trees To Ernesto Trejo in the Other World Old News: Poem on a Birthday Poem after Lu Yu Philosophical Poem on the Usual Subjects Memory Wooden Boats Loyalty The Uncertainty Principle Photograph of John Berryman on the Back of Love & Fame Travel 2007–2014 Poverty We Need Philosophers for This? I Too Am Not a Keeper of Sheep: Variation on a Theme by Pessoa Ode to Clouds In Memory of the Winos at the Moreton Bay Fig Tree, Santa Barbara, CA What Einstein Means to Me Scattering My Mother’s Ashes: Santa Barabara, CA Theory of Life on Other Worlds: Contemplating Retirement & Social Security Reform at Shore Line Park Looking West from Montecito, Late Afternoon Hemingway y yo Lost Light Drinking Champagne Note to Gerald Stern Too Long for the Postcard White Shirt The Shape of Things Heart Failure Antiques Road Show Poem on a Birthday Metaphysical Poem Ending with That Line from Dirty Harry Before Long Late Iberian Manichaeism & the Crisis of Faith Apnea Creedence Clear Water Metaphysical Reflection Slow Learner: In the Garden Acknowledgments

Editorial Reviews

Past praise for Christopher Buckley

"The poems are modest, straight forward, intensely lyrical and totally accessible. . . . This is a humble poetry of great truths and profound emotions that never overstates its concerns for the events both in and above the world. It rewards countless readings and never betrays itself."— Philip Levine on Sky in Ploughshares

Time and the shifts of time are the burden: not simply time as recollection or loss, but also and everywhere the persistent loneliness of star time, mastodon time, so that finally these are poems in which reflection takes on uncommon amplitude and presence. And all this would be nothing, of course, without the language, which is the glory of these poems.— Peter Everwine on Dark Matter

Christopher Buckley's gift for wide-ranging thinking meshes so gracefully with lovingly tender details, he feels like a companion voice for all time—a Hikmet, a Neruda, yes.— Naomi Shihab Nye on Back Room at the Philosopheris Club

The poems are verbally so rich, generous, out-loud (I can't not intone the rhetorical flourishes), inclusive, wry. I like especially the orientation to the large-picture physics/cosmology at the same time that (Buckley) relates his own past. . . . I like the tone—how else to address one's mortality & mixed luck except with irony & affection stirred with gratitude?— Dennis Schmitz

Some poets like only celestial music, other the grit of the streets, but Buckley engages winningly with both.— David Kirby in San Francisco Chronicle

Prize-winning poet Buckley has a unique poetic voice, a sort of breathless, long-sentenced style that is gripping and captivating . . . . These are poems of immortality and extinction that can still make you smile. He has an exquisite ear for language and a gutsy way of blending bravado with humility.— Library Journal

There is a quietness to these poems and breakouts of lyrical intensity that define Buckley as a master of the art.— North of Oxford

As straightforward as a yardstick, measuring by star-light, the weight of a butterfly heart. A book of poet magic, a proverbial pot ofgtold. 'Today's Book of Poetry' defies you to open any page of this book and not be entertained and enlightened.— Todayis Book of Poetry

From the Publisher