Fierce Elegy (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection reminds us that the elegy is lament but also―as it has been for centuries―a work of love\nPeter Gizzi has said that "the elegy is a mode that can transform a broken heart in a fierce world into a fierce heart in a broken world." For Gizzi, ferocity can be reimagined as vulnerability, bravery and discovery, a braiding of emotional and otherworldly depth, "a holding open." In Gizzi's voice joy and sorrow make a complex ecosystem. In their quest for a lyric reality, these poems remind us that elegy is lament but also―as it has been for centuries―a work of love. "This new poetry," Kamau Brathwaite has written about Gizzi, "taking such care of temperature―the time & details of the world―meaning the space(s) in which we live―defining love in this way. Writing along the edge. A way of writing about hope."\n[sample poem]\nCreely Song 
all that is lovely 
in words, even 
if gone to pieces 
all that is lovely 
gone, all of it 
for love and 
autobiography 
as if I were 
writing this 
hello, listen 
the plan is 
the body and 
all of it for love 
now in pieces 
all that is lovely 
echoes still 
in life & death 
still memory 
gardens open 
onto windows 
lovely, the charm 
that mirrors 
all that was, all 
that is, lovely 
in a song

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Gizzi, Peter

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Wesleyan University Press

Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection reminds us that the elegy is lament but also?as it has been for centuries?a work of love Peter Gizzi has said that "the elegy is a mode that can transform a broken heart in a fierce world into a fierce heart in a broken world." For Gizzi, ferocity can be reimagined as vulnerability, bravery and discovery, a braiding of emotional and otherworldly depth, "a holding open." In Gizzi's voice joy and sorrow make a complex ecosystem. In their quest for a lyric reality, these poems remind us that elegy is lament but also?as it has been for centuries?a work of love. "This new poetry," Kamau Brathwaite has written about Gizzi, "taking such care of temperature?the time & details of the world?meaning the space(s) in which we live?defining love in this way. Writing along the edge. A way of writing about hope." [sample poem] Creely Song all that is lovely in words, even if gone to pieces all that is lovely gone, all of it for love and autobiography as if I were writing this hello, listen the plan is the body and all of it for love now in pieces all that is lovely echoes still in life & death still memory gardens open onto windows lovely, the charm that mirrors all that was, all that is, lovely in a song

A visionary new work from an award-winning poet.

Some Values of Landscape and Weather (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Peter Gizzi's poems move between bewilderment and understanding, anger and astonishment. His third book in a decade, Some Values of Landscape and Weather revives poetic architectures such as elegy, song and litany, to build what he calls "a comprehensive music." Here musical and pictorial values perform against a backdrop of political, social and ethical values. These intense and exacting poems traverse a landscape of cultural memory that opens into the explosive, vibrant registers of the now. John Ashbery has written that Gizzi's poems are "simultaneously all over the page and right on target. He is the most exciting poet to come along in quite a while."

Peter Gizzi's powerful new collection fuses documentary truth with imaginative force. The Outernationale locates us "just off the grid," in an emotional and spiritual frontier, where reverie, outrage, history, and vision merge. Thinking and feeling become one in the urgent music of Gizzi's poems. Saturated with luminous detail, these original poems possess, even in their sorrowing moments, a dizzying freedom. This is both a poetry of conscience and the embodiment of a genuinely poetic consciousness. Objects, images, and their histories are caught here in their half-life, their profoundly human after-life. Gizzi has written a brilliant follow-up to Some Values of Landscape and Weather, a book hailed by Robert Creeley as "a breakthrough book in every way: for reader, for writer, and for the art."

The Outernationale (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

About Threshold Songs, the voices in these poems perform at the interior thresholds encountered each day, where we negotiate the unfathomable proximities of knowing and not knowing, the gulf of seeing and feeling, the uncanny relation of grief to joy, and the borderless nature of selfhood and tradition. Both conceptual and haunted, these poems explore the asymmetry of the body’s chemistry and its effects on expression and form. The poems in Threshold Songs tune us to the microtonal music of speaking and being spoken. Check for the online reader’s companion at http://petergizzi.site.wesleyan.edu.

Threshold Songs (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

About Threshold Songs, the voices in these poems perform at the interior thresholds encountered each day, where we negotiate the unfathomable proximities of knowing and not knowing, the gulf of seeing and feeling, the uncanny relation of grief to joy, and the borderless nature of selfhood and tradition. Both conceptual and haunted, these poems explore the asymmetry of the body's chemistry and its effects on expression and form. The poems in Threshold Songs tune us to the microtonal music of speaking and being spoken. Check for the online reader's companion at http://petergizzi.site.wesleyan.edu.

Runner-up for the William Carlos Williams Award (2015) Since his celebrated first book of poetry, Peter Gizzi has been hailed as one of the most significant and distinctive voices writing today. Gathered from over five collections, and representing close to twenty-five years of work, the poems in this generous selection strike a dynamic balance of honesty, emotion, intellectual depth and otherworldly resonance―in Gizzi's work, poetry itself becomes a primary ground of human experience. Haunted, vibrant, and saturated with luminous detail, Gizzi's poetry enlists the American vernacular in a magical and complex music. In Defense of Nothing is an immensely valuable introduction to the work of this extraordinary and singular poet. Check for the online reader's companion at http://petergizzi.site.weleyan.edu.

In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Runner-up for the William Carlos Williams Award (2015) Since his celebrated first book of poetry, Peter Gizzi has been hailed as one of the most significant and distinctive voices writing today. Gathered from over five collections, and representing close to twenty-five years of work, the poems in this generous selection strike a dynamic balance of honesty, emotion, intellectual depth and otherworldly resonance―in Gizzi's work, poetry itself becomes a primary ground of human experience. Haunted, vibrant, and saturated with luminous detail, Gizzi's poetry enlists the American vernacular in a magical and complex music. In Defense of Nothing is an immensely valuable introduction to the work of this extraordinary and singular poet. Check for the online reader's companion at http://petergizzi.site.weleyan.edu.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gizzi, Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gizzi, Peter

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gizzi, Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Fierce Elegy (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Fierce Elegy (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Some Values of Landscape and Weather (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Some Values of Landscape and Weather (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

The Outernationale (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

The Outernationale (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Threshold Songs (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Threshold Songs (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems, 1987–2011 (Wesleyan Poetry Series)