First and Last Words (SIGNED)

Chappell, Fred

ISBN 10: 0807114871 / ISBN 13: 9780807114872

Edité par Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge and london, 1989

A propos de cet article

Octavo. 57 pages. Softcover in tan glossy paper wrappers. Binding has light very wear, some rubbing. The text is clean and sound. INSCRIBED by the author on the half title to Lee Zacharias, a prominent North Carolina author and Emerita Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

N° de réf. du vendeur 052537

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: First and Last Words (SIGNED)
• Éditeur: Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge and london
• Date de parution: 1989
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0807114871
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780807114872
• Reliure: Paperback
• État de l'article: Near Fine
• État de la jaquette: No Jacket
• Poids: 1,1 livre
• Signé: Signed by Author(s)
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • North Carolina Literature
  • Poetry
  • Signed Books & Association Copies

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Fred Chappell continues to astonish. In his new collection of verse, he matches the vitality and grace, the deep intelligence and keenly observant sensibility, that characterize such earlier works as Midquest and Source. First and Last Words revives the traditional practice of supplying new prologue and epilogue poems to classic works of literature. The poems invite renewed acquaintance with familiar works and authors--The Georgics and The Dynasts, Livy and Lucretius, Goethe and Tolstoy, The Wind in the Willows--and are offered as a celebration of their enduring significance. In "The Watchman," a prologue to the Orteseia, Chappell writes:

The watchman keeps his vigil on the roof
Of the ruining house. This long year,
Stretched out on his belly like a hound,
He has awaited the semaphore
Blaze, awaited proof
Of the victory that shall pull down
A proud and bitter family. In rain
Or cold starshine, gripping the eave,
He has searched the hard horizon for a sign.

Still other poems are appreciations of music or the visual arts, as in "My Hand Placed on a Rubens Drawing"

The ages work toward mastery
Of a single gesture. A torso's twist,
The revelation of a thigh,
White stone corded in a fist:

Fragments that might still add up
To compose a figure of the perfected soul
As it releases from the grip
Of vision that burned to draw it whole.

All of the poems in First and Last Words are marked by a thoughtful use of the voice and a careful attention to language. They confirm Fred Chappell's status as one of our very finest living poets.

À propos de l?auteur

Before his death in 2024, Fred Chappell published more than thirty volumes of poetry and prose. Honors bestowed on his work include the Bollingen Prize, the Aiken Taylor Award, the T. S. Eliot Prize, and the Thomas Wolfe Prize. His fiction was translated into more than a dozen languages and received the Best Foreign Book Award from the Académie Française. A native of Canton in the mountains of western North Carolina, Chappell was the state's poet laureate from 1997 to 2002 and an English professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro for forty years.