An Explanation of America

by Robert Pinsky

Overview

From An Explanation of America:
LAIR


Robert Pinsky


Inexhaustible, delicate, as if
Without source or medium, daylight
Undoes the mind; the infinite,


Empty actual is too bright,
Scattering to where the road
Whispers, through a mile of woods …


Later, how quiet the house is:
Dusk-like and refined,
The sweet Phoebe-note


Piercing from the trees;
The calm globe of the morning,
Things to read or to write


Ranged on a table; the brain
A dark, stubborn current that breathes
Blood, a deaf wadding,


The hands feeding it paper
And sensations of wood or metal
On its own terms. Trying to read


I persist a while, finish the recognition
By my breath of a dead giant's breath—
Stayed by the space of a rhythm,


Witnessing the blue gulf of the air.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691013602
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/21/1979
Series:	Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets , #10
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Editorial Reviews

"[An] ambitious and immensely likable long poem . . . a poem which—a rare thing—seems to combine intimacy and authority."

The New York Times Book Review

"Wise and compassionate. . . . It is one of the most readable long poems in recent memory, graspable by all."—-Kenneth Funsten, The Los Angeles Times

"I can't imagine anyone who, after reading An Explanation of America, wouldn't want to return to it again and again."—-William H. Pritchard, Poetry

From the Publisher

I can't imagine anyone who, after reading An Explanation of America, wouldn't want to return to it again and again.

Poetry - William H. Pritchard

Wise and compassionate. . . . It is one of the most readable long poems in recent memory, graspable by all.

The Los Angeles Times - Kenneth Funsten

I can't imagine anyone who, after reading An Explanation of America, wouldn't want to return to it again and again.
— William H. Pritchard

Poetry

Wise and compassionate. . . . It is one of the most readable long poems in recent memory, graspable by all.
— Kenneth Funsten

The Los Angeles Times