Merrill, Cavafy, Poems and Dreams is a collection that--as the title indicates--looks both outward and inward. It begins with essays on Greek poets from Homer to Ritsos, in which Rachel Hadas's knowledge of classical literature and her years in Greece richly inform the writing. The collection also includes a loving exploration of the work of poet James Merrill, who was a close personal friend of the author's. The second half of the book combines explorations of various corners and horizons of the poetry scene, including neglected American poets and Hadas's thoughts on her own poetics and career. "Two Letters from New York" and "Tangled Web Sites" take bemused looks at literary or cultural landscapes. Hadas also looks inward: to dreams and dreamwork, to her dead mother's address book, to the emblematic drilling of a well in a country house. The range of selections includes essays, interviews, memoir, criticism, and a few of Hadas's own poems.Rachel Hadas is the author of eleven books of poetry, essays, and translations. Her most recent book is Halfway Down the Hall: New and Selected Poems. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry and an American Academy-Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is Professor of English at the Newark campus of Rutgers University.

Merrill, Cavafy, Poems, and Dreams (Poets On Poetry)

Literature & Fiction

Hadas, Rachel

History & Criticism

University of Michigan Press

In a collection that features forty-five poems written by gay men with AIDS, an English professor tells how she instituted a poetry workshop for AIDS sufferers and includes pieces of her own poetry that evolved out of the workshop.

Unending Dialogue: Voices from an AIDS Poetry Workshop

Poetry

Faber&Faber

In the late spring of 1992, poet Rachel Hadas's mother died of cancer. Six weeks later, a close friend died of AIDS. This small (5x7") volume is a sequence of essays on the aftermath of these deaths in Hadas's life. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

The Double Legacy: Reflections on a Pair of Deaths

The poems in Rachel Hadas's new book are united by a common preoccupation with passage--passage variously construed. In Section I, the four seasons are glimpsed in turn through the lenses of several types of personal associations, especially parenthood. As spring gives way to fall and winter, separation looms; diverse kinds of temporary and permanent renewal come with spring, and the fifth poem in this section steps outside this cycle. In Section II, the phrase "pass it on" recalls the game "telephone," in which a word is whispered by one speaker to another. Here the poems focus on tradition, primarily as it is transmitted through teaching, but also through art and again parenthood. Thoughts on teaching specific texts (the Iliad, Dickinson's poems, Sophocles' Philoctetes) alternate with more personal moments of contemplation. Finally, in Section III "pass it on" comes to signify transition--whether between spring and summer, city and country, youth and age, presence and absence, or life and death.
From "Three Silences": Of all the times when not to speak is best, mother's and infant's is the easiest, the milky mouth still warm against her breast.
Before a single year has passed, he's well along the way: language has cast its spell. Each thing he sees now has a tale to tell.
A wide expanse of water-cean. Look! Next time, it seems that water is a brook. The world's loose leaves, bound up into a book.
Originally published in 1989.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Pass It On (Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets)

Princeton University Press

The poems in Rachel Hadas's new book are united by a common preoccupation with passage--passage variously construed. In Section I, the four seasons are glimpsed in turn through the lenses of several types of personal associations, especially parenthood. As spring gives way to fall and winter, separation looms; diverse kinds of temporary and permanent renewal come with spring, and the fifth poem in this section steps outside this cycle. In Section II, the phrase "pass it on" recalls the game "telephone", in which a word is whispered by one speaker to another. Here the poems focus on tradition, primarily as it is transmitted through teaching, but also through art and again parenthood. Thoughts on teaching specific texts (the Iliad, Dickinson's poems, Sophocles' Philoctetes) alternate with more personal moments of contemplation. Finally, in Section III "pass it on" comes to signify transition--whether between spring and summer, city and country, youth and age, presence and absence, or life and death. From "Three Silences": Of all the times when not to speak is best, mother's and infant's is the easiest, the milky mouth still warm against her breast. Before a single year has passed, he's well along the way: language has cast its spell. Each thing he sees now has a tale to tell. A wide expanse of water-cean. Look! Next time, it seems that water is a brook. The world's loose leaves, bound up into a book. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since

A central theme of The Golden Road is the prolonged dementia of the poet’s husband. But Rachel Hadas’s new collection sets the loneliness of progressive loss in the context of the continuities that sustain her: reading, writing, and memory; familiar places; and the rich texture of a life fully lived. These poems are meticulously observed, nimble in their deployment of a range of forms, and capacious in their range of reference. They take us to a Greek island, to Carl Schurz Park in New York City, to an old house in Vermont, to a performance of Macbeth, and to the neurology floor of a hospital. Hadas finds beauty in all those places. The Golden Road laments, but it also celebrates.

The Golden Road: Poems

TriQuarterly

Rachel Hadas reaches the peak of her poetic prowess in Questions in the Vestibule. A deeply personal and meditative collection in three sections, Questions moves through the liminal space of solitude and the coded landscape of dreams toward the startling power of a life-changing love. 
Hadas’s voice and her formal elegance, as distinctive and distinguished as ever, endow this new work with a precise and thoughtful beauty. Questions in the Vestibule takes readers into a new territory of unapologetic bliss.

Questions in the Vestibule: Poems

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

Books by Hadas, Rachel

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

Merrill, Cavafy, Poems, and Dreams (Poets On Poetry)

Merrill, Cavafy, Poems, and Dreams (Poets On Poetry)

Unending Dialogue: Voices from an AIDS Poetry Workshop

The Double Legacy: Reflections on a Pair of Deaths

Pass It On (Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets)

Pass It On (Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets)

Pass It On (Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets)

Pass It On (Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets)

The Golden Road: Poems

Questions in the Vestibule: Poems