Overview

In A Memory of the Future, critically acclaimed poet Elizabeth Spires reflects on selfhood and the search for a core identity. Inspired by the tradition of poetic interest in Zen, Spires explores the noisy space of the mind, interrogating the necessary divide between the social persona that navigates the world and the artist's secret self. With vivid, careful attention to the minute details of everyday moments, A Memory of the Future observes, questions, and meditates on the ordinary, attempting to make sense of the boundaries of existence. As the poems move from Zen reflections outward into the identifiable worlds of Manhattan, Maine, and Maryland's Eastern shore, houses, both real and imagined, become metaphorical extensions of the self and psyche. These poems ask the unanswerable questions that become more pressing in the second half of life. How are we changed by the passage of time? How does memory define and shape us? As Spires reminds us, any memory of the future will become, paradoxically, a memory of the past, and of forgetting.

Full Product Details

9780393358292

Table of Contents

Reviews

All the distinguishing characteristics we've come to associate with Elizabeth Spires's poems-their shimmering clarity, verbal restraint, and self-interrogations-are enacted in this new work of meticulous surfaces and surprising depths. . . . Spires's consuming subject-the fluidity of time set against the immutable presence of death-is approached with Zen-sparked simplicity: 'As one grows older, / there should be fewer / and fewer words to say.' Yet those few words, as set down in A Memory of the Future, resonate with wisdom and insistent wonder. -- Michael Waters, author of Celestial Joyride Quiet and forceful, Spires has taken random moments and created a book full of memories through her words, altering the future for those fortunate enough to read her work. -- Lee E. Cart - Shelf Awareness This is poetry just about anyone might savor.... A Memory of the Future gives us what's more valuable than easy answers, the questioning. -- Jeanne Larsen - Hollins Critic There are a number of instances where [Spires] uses words with such sparing potency, a veteran surgeon who knows how to make the smallest incision to get to what she's after. -- Bret McCabe - Johns Hopkins Magazine The poems feel like prayers, and in some cases koans-each unique but all with a timeless, spiritual quality.... Little nuggets of wisdom come like offerings placed on an altar, quietly, with grace and intention. -- Lauren LaRocca - Baltimore magazine [Elizabeth Spires's] haunting work is filled with a mix of active spiritualism intersecting with meditational silences.... These poems glow with interiority-profound, intense, spiritual. -- Laverne Frith It is a pleasure to read Elizabeth Spires's new book.... The entire book, including its cover, shows a love of the transparent philosophy of Zen and the art associated with it and perhaps a desire for its detachment. -- Mark Jarman - Hudson Review Sprinkled with philosophical inquiries and Zen koans like that of the title, Spires's contemplative [seventh] collection opens with delicious wordplay. -- New York Times Book Review A book worthy of pondering... Spires offers so many questions and considerations, yet they all return to our fleeting existences. -- Nick Ripatrazone - Millions The spare, sly lines in A Memory of the Future are a reminder that the game of a poem is sometimes better advanced by underplaying. -- David Orr - New York Times Book Review

Author Information

Elizabeth Spires is the author of seven poetry collections, including Worldling and The Wave-Maker. Her poetry has appeared in the Atlantic and The New Yorker, among other publications. A professor at Goucher College, she lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available