Lives of the Sleepers (Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry)

Ned Balbo's 2004 Sandeen Prize-winning collection of poetry seeks a voice for contemporary and historical figures as they face the ecstasy and grief of love. In these assured and powerful poems, Balbo's confidence in lyric, narrative, and dramatic forms is always evident: lovers whirl in Dante's circle, saints suffer for their faith, and characters from Hitchcock films are caught in traps of their own making. With energy and insight, Balbo gives us Alice Liddell's last word on Lewis Carroll's infatuation, a Victorian heroine who uncovers a wax museum's hidden crimes, and a bestiary where courtship rituals are both savage and redemptive. Lives of the Sleepers explores the connections of men and women across the centuries, and interrogates those patterns that always reassert themselves. These sleepers are joined in a dialogue that transcends any one era. The joy of their connection and the grief of their separation also reflect the history of our own age.

Literature & Fiction

Balbo, Ned

Literary

University of Notre Dame Press

Galileo's Banquet

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Washington Writers' Pub. House

<p><div><i>The Cylburn Touch-Me-Nots</i>, Ned Balbo's sixth book of poems, inhabits that twilight, "the hour of dark and not-dark," when the rising of the moon traces the arc of memory, and we ask ourselves, "What else are we given?" From a crow's orbit and a hawk's descent to desire, love, and heartbreak, these poems range widely in their search for the sacred, whether visible to the eye or buried, waiting to be discovered, like all that "the dark still holds." The trove unearthed includes a sister lost to the author by adoption, speaking from a parallel life that could have been his own; an abandoned daughter who, in an earlier decade, dreams of distant Pluto; and the compass that once belonged to the poet's birth father, the mute artifact of lost connections. A conspiracy theorist casts doubt on the moon landing; Saint Joseph grieves at the loss of his son to the suffering God has planned; and a figure in Bosch's triptych, despite an afterlife of torment, fondly recalls the earthly delights he savored.<br /> <br /> Through brief lyrics and longer narratives in a variety of forms, we see that time is "unforgiving/yet not merciless," and that even when we draw back--like the touch-me-not plants whose leaves withdraw "like seawater parted by the wind"--our need to touch and to be touched is universal.</div></p>

The Cylburn Touch-Me-Nots: Poems

Poetry

Criterion Books

<p>In Upcycling Paumanok, Ned Balbo shows how the currents of mid-century memory connect to our contemporary moment. Despite archaic oracles and architecture's visionaries, time refuses to yield its secrets, though love impels us toward renewal and a future unforeseen. Popular culture and history - Winsor McCay, Jack Kirby, The Poseidon Adventure, Times Square, evolution, neuroscience - provide a backdrop that Balbo depicts with tenderness and humor. A rondel, a terzanelle, a poem in rhyme royal, a rondeau redoublé, a curtal sonnet, and more are among the masterfully metrical forms encountered along the way, while "The Woods" - a suburban pastoral and wide-ranging meditation - is a moving example of Balbo's eye for period detail and the restless imagination he brings to every poem.</p>

Upcycling Paumanok

Measure Press Inc.

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