New and Selected Poems: 1956-1996

by Philip Appleman

Overview

With an astonishing command of nature imagery, from sparrows to mastodons, Philip Appleman can deftly weave into a single poem an intricate pattern of ideas drawn from evolution, humanism, anthropology, religious skepticism, and everyday experience. Appealing to reason as well as to emotion and imagination, he writes poems of lyrical intensity and remarkable narrative depth. He creates characters—Eve or Darwin or a failed priest—with such wit, compassion, and subtle humor that they live on the page and surprise us with new insights into joy and sorrow, life and death. Set on the beach at Malibu, in the port of Trieste, or in a Manhattan subway, his poems evoke genuine feeling with out sentimentality and transform the personal into the universal.

Drawn from six previous books of poetry written over four decades, and with fourteen new poems, this collection shows the power and complexity of Appleman’s wide-ranging talent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610752763
Publisher:	University of Arkansas Press
Publication date:	07/01/1996
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	279
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Philip Appleman is the author of six earlier books of poetry, three novels, and several nonfiction books, including the Norton Critical Edition of Darwin and The Silent Explosion, which deals with world overpopulation. His poetry has appeared in numerous periodicals, among them Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Partisan Review, and Poetry. Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University, he now lives and writes in Manhattan and Sagaponack, New York, with his wife, playwright and poet Marjorie Appleman.

Table of Contents

Contents I . The Outside II. Promises III. Torn Kites I . Old Glory II. Your Light III. Somewhere East IV. Last Chords V. The Measure of All Things I. Where Light Wells Up II. Backs to the Wall III. Something is Gone IV. The Telling of the Heart Preface I. Giants in the Earth II. The Rust of Civilizations III. Animals Tame and Animals Feral IV. In the Caves of Childhood I. The Bible Retold for Grownups II. Into the Wind III. The Tree of Knowledge Kissing the Aborigines (Kakadu) Them Eulogy Days One Through Six, Etc. Superstition Possessed How to Live Gravity Never-Never Land A Priest Forever Vasectomy Creation Will Holding On Index of Titles About the Author

Editorial Reviews

Retold Bible stories, poetic travelogues, lyrics and love poems offer variety in this definitive collection. Many of Appleman's poems collapse under the weight of worthy messages, as in "Memo to the 21st Century," which laments that the fields and woods of Indiana are being replaced by concrete. About the Lascaux caves he writes, "...remember/ that nothing will keep your lives alive/ but artthe black and ochre visions/ you draw inside your cave." Appleman's poems (14 new here and 130 drawn from six earlier collections) rise above the average when he lets a single image dominate a poem or when he feels so strongly that his message becomes an anguished cry. A few poems seem glib, some undisciplined or self-indulgent. Lighthearted poems with a consistently sustained tone succeed, as do personal poems in which morals, rather than being forced, develop naturally from particular experience. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Appleman’s poems (14 new here and 130 drawn from six earlier collections) rise above the average when he lets a single image dominate a poem or when he feels so strongly that his message becomes an anguished cry.”

—Publisher’s Weekly

“Appleman should gain well-deserved attention from this cohesive and substantial collection. His voice is quietly lyrical and deeply rooted in the everyday yet somehow drenched with passion”

—ALA Booklist

From the Publisher