Overview

A powerful, deeply human collection from one of America's most distinctive literary voices. In Last of the Lincolns: New and Selected Poems, Gerald Nicosia-renowned biographer of Jack Kerouac-turns his sharp eye and generous heart fully to poetry. This sweeping collection gathers new work alongside selected poems that trace a lifetime of experience, memory, and reflection. Moving effortlessly between elegy, tribute, haiku, and narrative verse, Nicosia writes with clarity and emotional honesty, inviting readers into a world shaped by love, loss, friendship, and the passage of time. From intimate portraits of family in ""Wives, Mothers, and Daughters"" to vivid encounters with literary legends in ""Kerouac and Other Beat Heroes,"" these poems honor both the personal and the cultural forces that define a life. Here, the Beat Generation lives again-alongside mothers, daughters, lovers, and lost friends-each rendered with compassion and unflinching truth. Nicosia's work bridges the spirit of American counterculture with a timeless search for meaning, capturing moments of beauty in everyday life and confronting mortality with courage and grace. Whether reflecting on aging, memory, or the enduring power of human connection, Last of the Lincolns offers poetry that is accessible, moving, and profoundly resonant. For readers of contemporary American poetry, Beat literature, and literary biography, this collection is both a tribute and a revelation.

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9781604542738

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Reviews

Gerald Nicosia's poetry is like some of the new jazz in its many-sidedness and intelligence. -Michael McClure Gerald Nicosia is a poet of the first rank, following in the tradition of Irving Layton and Theodore Roethke. -Jerry Kamstra I know characters whom Gerald Nicosia knows. I've been to places he has been. We've been alive during the same years. He writes truly. Poetry-that is, beauty and truth-comes to him whatever he beholds. And then there's the new book. He reveals to me wonders I had not known-the Lincolns, the last of the Lincolns. -Maxine Hong Kingston Gerald Nicosia's poetry never disappoints me. Each poem in Last of the Lincolns compels me to engage with it in ways sometimes unexpectedly poignant, and often deceptively enlightening. All together they comprise a thoughtful, artful, caring poet's mosaic of a world both public and personal. Last of the Lincolns belongs on the ""favorites"" shelf of any poetry lover's collection-it's now on mine. -Michael Lally Darkness and light, love, complete hopelessness, compassion for both the harshness and the glory of life, these are always the true poet's material. Gerald Nicosia is such a poet-across the whole spectrum, both good and bad, of human existence. His words once read become permanent. -Dale Herd

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