Overview

In this, his tenth and perhaps final book of poems, Paul Mariani-acclaimed poet, biographer, critic and teacher-reflects on his life, returning in memory to the 1940s and ending some eighty-five years later with the present. No wonder, then, that so many of the poems strike an elegiac note, some with humor, some with sadness, some with wonder, some with regret-and all asking questions for which there are at best only further questions. Here are poems about growing up in the tenements of New York's East Side, poems about the erosion of his family on Long Island, elegies for those young and old who have passed, and all these years later, along the Connecticut River in western Massachusetts-his home for the past sixty years-poems reflecting on age and frailty as they take their toll, as he turns to faith and family to see himself through another day. In the midst of all this is the collection's central section: a verse drama about growing up in a fractured family back in the 1950s, as finally the poet tries to sing a song for his family and especially his mother, long gone now, who asked him to sing for her all those years ago, which he has tried to do while the sun sets and, blessedly, there's still time to sing.

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9781639822294

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Reviews

Praise for Paul Mariani ""Muscular and passionate, Paul Mariani's poems are testimony to the gravity and strength of our American language and American lives. Here is fierce work-tough, lively, and all-involved."" -Marvin Bell, author of Nightworks ""Whether confessional, dramatic, or lyrical, Paul Mariani's poetry has always been alert to the sacredness of life and the quiet, abiding presence of Mystery even in the quotidian."" -Ron Hansen, author of Mariette in Ecstasy and Exiles ""Paul Mariani writes as if literature were about our lives, God might exist, and America could still make good on its least crass promises to itself. He combines great learning and a nearly raw fervor-unusual companions."" -William Matthews, author of Search Party ""With dazzling energy, unblinking honesty, and always with compassion, Paul Mariani is able to make myth out of the ordinary harshness of our everyday lives."" -Linda Pastan, author of Traveling Light

Author Information

Paul Mariani is University Professor of English emeritus at Boston College. He is the author of twenty-two books, including biographies of William Carlos Williams, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Wallace Stevens. His previous volumes of poetry include The Great Wheel, Salvage Operations, Ordinary Time, and All That Will Be New. He is also the author of Thirty Days: On Retreat with the Exercises of St. Ignatius and The Mystery of It All: The Vocation of Poetry in the Twilight of Modernity.

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