Laws of Rest Contributor(s): Goldstein, David B. (Author) |
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ISBN: 1927040868 ISBN-13: 9781927040867 Publisher: Book*hug Press OUR PRICE: $18.00 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: October 2013 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Poetry | Canadian - Poetry | American - General - Literary Criticism | Poetry |
Dewey: 811.6 |
Series: Book Thug Tradebooks |
Physical Information: 0.3" H x 6.9" W x 8.9" (0.40 lbs) 84 pages |
Themes: - Cultural Region - Canadian - Topical - Death/Dying |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Laws of Rest invents a new form, the English prose sonnet 1/2 an intricate chamber of text enclosed within four quatrains of right-justified prose. In their box-like aesthetics, the poems conjure the weird, meticulous worlds of Joseph Cornell or Edmund Spenser. But anything can happen in these little rooms, in which the overheard conversation of taxi drivers, invented verses of Virgil, found text about Middle-Eastern geopolitics, and the music of extinct butterflies merge into unpredictable collage. Presiding over all is the gender-bending character Lucy, the subject of a failed love affair conducted in convenience stores and equestrian centers. The book ends with a series of poems a friend who died young, bringing to elegaic focus the poems' quest to understand the laws of rest (a phrase taken from the Jewish laws of Sabbath observance): the stillness of loss, the mute repose at the end of speaking. |
Contributor Bio(s): Goldstein, David B.: - David B. Goldstein is the author of a previous poetry collection, LAWS OF REST (BookThug, 2013), a book of criticism, Eating and Ethics in Shakespeare's England (Cambridge, 2013), and two chapbooks, the most recent of which is Object Permanence (Ugly Duckling, 2015). The recipient of numerous grants and awards, including the Shakespeare's Globe Book Award, Goldstein lives with his family in Toronto, where he is Associate Professor of English at York University. |