Dying for Beauty: Poems
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Book Overview
Whether paying tribute to literary icons such as Walt Whitman and Sor Juana In s de la Cruz, or examining global and cultural degradation, Wronsky proves to be a poet of sharp wit and endearing wonder. The crowning jewel of Dying for Beauty is "Desdemona," a nearly book-length lyric that alternates between meditation and dramatization, between discourse and incantation. "I started out thinking I was writing an elegy for the earth - from my own self, in my own neighborhood, with its crack addicts and war-like helicopters, its poverty and ?lthiness...And yet also, here I was with a new daughter and this love in me, equal to nothing else."
"Formally, the poem 'Desdemona'] brings into its amplitude and openness material that could be inert, but is lifted always by rhythmic urgency and a faultless, inventive music....Wronsky is also trying to think through the poem, reason passionately through its issues of language, gender, fear and loss."-The Boston Review
Gail Wronsky received a BA and an MFA from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah. She is the author of two books of poetry and teaches at Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:1556591357
ISBN13:9781556591358
Release Date:February 2000
Publisher:Copper Canyon Press
Length:96 Pages
Weight:0.35 lbs.
Dimensions:0.3" x 5.5" x 8.9"
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PoetryCustomer Reviews
2 ratings
Breathtaking!
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
The poems in Gail Wronsky's collection are inhabited by the ghosts of the forgotten. Desdemona, Walt Whitman, and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz haunt the pages of the book, challenging silence and silencers. In those moments the sublime rises from the ordinary in sequences like "The Earth as Desdemona." The book is filled with surprise: a lawn chair becomes a cubist chicken, hieroglyphs appear in the sky. Wronsky's "Dying for Beauty" mixes elegance with outrageousness. The language that bridges these two sensibilities reveal the blessings of music.
Dyong for Beauty
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
Seeing this book on your list is a special treat for me because I happen to be one of Professor Wronsky's students at Loyala Marymount University in Los Angeles. She desrves all of the credit towards her book because she is a brilliant English professor who has a love and deep appreciation for what she teaches.
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