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Tantivy

Tantivy

by Donald Revell

Published by: Alice James Books

Imprint: Alice James Books

80 Pages, 5.50 x 8.50 in

Paperback
9781882295975
Published: September 2012

$15.95

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Through close attention to nature's myriad syntheses and separations, Donald Revell's sage lyric meditations seek and find proof of the otherworldly. These poems are ripe with the ecstatic vision we come to expect from Revell's work.

"Victorians"

There is snow and there is snow.
A young woman, daughter of the eminent physician,
Disrobes at her window, and starvation,
Like a pack of dogs with jeweled mouths,
Pauses a moment, howls, and the young woman
Recites a poem to herself.

So long ago the words are lost
Even as each remains a part of us.
Christmas meaning snow out of a broiling sun.
Humanity meaning numbers.
Childhood meaning children and railings and kisses
Never kissed but carved into real trees.

Motherless goddamn modernity never grew.
Here we are again at Christmas
On fire escapes without a fire in view.

Poet, translator, and critic Donald Revell has authored ten previous collections of poetry. Winner of the 2008 NEA Translation Award, the 2004 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and two-time winner of the PEN Center USA Award in Poetry, Revell has received fellowships from the NEA, Ingram Merrill, and Guggenheim memorial foundations. He is poetry editor of Colorado Review.

I. THE LAST MEN …6

Victorians …7
Victorians (2) …8
Victorians (3) …9
Victorians (4) …10
Victorians (5) …11
Victorians (6) …12
Victorians (7) …13
Victorians (8) …14
Victorians (9) …15
Victorians (10) …16
Victorians (11) …17
Homage to John Frederick Peto …18
“Jules Laforgue writes to say” …20
The Last Poem …21

II. BIRDS AND TREES …22

“The sky has slipped behind the moon” …23
Pure …24
“You are the color not made” …25
Aubade at the End …26
“Moonlit cedar bursts in pain” …27
Epithalamion …28
Talons …29
“Pigeon dying in the box” …30
What the Colors Mean …31
Fedoras …32
Pretty Alcoves …33
Providence …34
Alsace …35
“Mornings on a twig” …36
“Birds small enough” …37
City …38
“A line of hills” …39
Rapture …40

III. TITHON …41

IV. THE AFTERLIFE …52

Made Mention …53
True Love …54
Barking Dogs …55
Called …56
Forgiving Bells …57
Rumors of Rain …58
Stag …59
“Faust cannot” …60
“Out to the west” …61
Winter Solstice …62
“Unreal precision of the houses” …63
“Some motionless conflict in the sky” …64
Last Man …65

Donald Revell is the author of sixteen collections of poetry, most recently White Campion (2021), and The English Boat (2018), both from Alice James Books. Revell has also published six volumes of translations from the French, including Apollinaire’s Alcools, Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell, Laforgue’s Last Verses, and Verlaine's Songs without Words. His critical writings have been collected as: Essay: A Critical Memoir; The Art of Attention; and Invisible Green: Selected Prose. Winner of the PEN USA Translation Award and two-time winner of the PEN USA Award for Poetry, he has also won the Academy of American Poets’ Lenore Marshall Prize and is a former Fellow of the Ingram Merrill and Guggenheim Foundations. Additionally, he has twice been awarded Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Having previously taught at the Universities of Alabama, Denver, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee, and Utah, Donald Revell is currently a Professor of English at UNLV and faculty affiliate of the Black Mountain Institute.

"Revell is one of American poetry’s quiet masters, an aesthetically daring poet who, late in his career, took up religious themes and has created a kind of edgy wisdom poetry...The best of these poems are transcendent." —Publishers Weekly

“Every word counts in Donald Revell. You must read him carefully— not because he’s difficult but because he’s profound. But that’s too inappropriate, that word; let me say sun-worthy, Sophoclean, God-drenched. Let me say grave, trust-worthy, loving, faithful, shocking, brilliant, honest. Let me say for dear life. One of America’s best poets.” —Gerald Stern

Tantivy

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