| The Regatta in the Skies Contributor(s): Lieberman, Laurence (Author) |
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ISBN: 0820320358 ISBN-13: 9780820320359 Publisher: University of Georgia Press OUR PRICE: $20.66 Product Type: Paperback Published: January 1999 Annotation: The Regatta in the Skies is a wonderful, complex collection of the best long poems from each phase of Laurence Lieberman's distinguished but still developing career, from his midwestern American childhood to his travels to the exotic landscapes of the underwater world, Japan, and the Caribbean. In a number of recent poems, Lieberman views islands of the West Indies through the eyes of local artists. Using cross-cultural relationships on individual and national levels to create a new kind of "poetry as witness, " he weaves stories into his poems. No less engaging than his subjects are his cadences, ordered in intricately textured lines and original syllabic stanza patterns. "Orange County Plague: Scenes" focuses on the plight of the orange trees in southern California, blending motifs of politics, social history, civil rights of ethnic minorities, and the mythology surrounding them with descriptions of nature and landscape. This linked progression of seventeen poems, structured like a sonnet sequence, establishes the primacy of place in Lieberman's continuing canon. The longest poems deal with Jamaica, but others are set in the smaller Caribbean islands, including Montserrat. In the poem "The Factories of Bay Leaf and Lime" Lieberman celebrates instinctive beauties of Montserrat's culture and workplace and helps memorialize its national character at a time when the entire country is threatened with extinction by a volcano. The Regatta in the Skies is a bold and unforgettable collection from a poet in the of his career. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Poetry | American - General |
| Dewey: 811.54 |
| LCCN: 98020341 |
| Physical Information: 0.57" H x 6.02" W x 9.02" (0.60 lbs) 192 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The Regatta in the Skies is a wonderful, complex collection of the best long poems from each phase of Laurence Lieberman's distinguished but still developing career, from his midwestern American childhood to his travels to the exotic landscapes of the underwater world, Japan, and the Caribbean. In a number of recent poems, Lieberman view islands of the West Indies through the eyes of intriguing local artists. Using cross-cultural relationships on individual and national levels to create a new kind of "poetry as witness," he weaves stories into the poems. No less engaging than his subjects are his cadences, ordered in intricately textured lines and original syllabic stanza patterns. "Orange County Plague: Scenes" focuses on the plight of the orange trees in southern California, blending motifs of politics, social history, civil rights of ethnic minorities, and the mythology surrounding them with descriptions of nature and landscape. This linked progression of seventeen poems, structured like a sonnet sequence, establishes the primacy of place in Lieberman's continuing canon. The longest poems deal with Jamaica, but others take as their settings a number of the smaller Caribbean islands, including Montserrat. In the poem "The Factories of Bay Leaf and Lime" Lieberman celebrates instinctive beauties of Montserrat's culture and workplace, and helps memorialize its national character at a time when the entire country is threatened with extinction by a volcano. The Regatta in the Skies is a bold and unforgettable collection from a poet at the top of his form. |
Contributor Bio(s): Lieberman, Laurence: - LAURENCE LIEBERMAN is a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of eleven volumes of poetry, including Dark Songs: Slave House and Synagogue, and his work has appeared in the New Yorker, American Poetry Review, and the Hudson Review. |