Velocities by Stephen Dobyns

Velocities by Stephen Dobyns

The American poet Stephen Dobyns is a spinner of dark, extravagant fables of a world we live or may live in. His poems are peopled with devils and angels, ghostly chickens, distorted mythical figures, God, and the risen dead 'pretending they're still alive'. They present a view of what it means to be human which is at once both funny and bleak, compassionate and remorseless. His is a world haunted by regret, driven by desire and need, illuminated by daring make-believe. In his often frightening and sometimes strangely funny poems, Dobyns creates a remarkable bridge between pure entertainment and deep psychological insight.

Arrestingly crisp tales told from a middle distance between fantasy and allegory..the forms of loss that pervade so many lives are the submerged subject of these powerfully realised poems. There is a fantastic world here, presented with deadpan authority. The invitation is to see the fantastic as routine, as one does in Kafka. * New York Times *
For twenty years Stephen Dobyns has been a prominent voice in American poetry, admired more and more. In fact today, in mid-career, he is famous, and justly so. His manner is tart, often sardonic, his imagination wildly original, his language tough, quirky, funny, yet at heart the poems are profoundly humane, poetic in the grand tradition. Now here is an ample one-volume selection from all his work so far - an event to celebrate. Velocities is a book that will benefit us all -- Hayden Carruth

Stephen Dobyns teaches in the MFA program at Warren Wilson College, Massachusetts. He has published ten books of poetry. His nineteen novels include Cold Dog Soup, which was made into a film, and ten titles in his Charlie Bradshaw detective series. His most recent works of fiction are a novel, Boy in the Water (1999), and a book of short stories, Eating Naked (2000). His first collection, Concurring Beasts, was the Lamont Poetry Selection for 1971. Black Dog, Red Dog was the winner of the 1984 National Poetry Series competition. Cemetery Nights was chosen for the Poetry Society of America's Melville Cane Award in 1987. He has also published a book of essays on poetry, Best Words, Best Order (St Martin's Press, 1996). Five of his poetry books have been published in Britain by Bloodaxe Books: Cemetery Nights (1991), Velocities: New & Selected Poems (1994), Common Carnage (1998), Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides (2000) and The Porcupine's Kisses (2003).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781852242640
ISBN 10	1852242647
Title	Velocities
Author	Stephen Dobyns
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Year published	1996-05-23
Number of pages	320
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable