The Constructor: Poems

Few poets can compete with Koethe's long lines for their prosy clarity or their oneiric intensity, sounding out how intricate a tone of voice could be, or how.
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John Koethe is a professional philosopher whose poems speak deeply about fleeting sensations and emotional states that are almost all contained within the voice of the poem. The effect of his long-lined work is surely cumulative and by the end of the book most readers will have entered into a reflective and slightly depressed state the position of modern philosophy?

Unfortunately, the poems are almost devoid of music, metaphor and simile. There is very little exploration of language and the diction is professorial, clinical, almost psychiatric. There is virtually no recognition of the world outside the speaker and this has the effect of distancing the reader. The book's blurb raises the example of Wallace Stevens but there really is no comparison.

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Stevens' investigations into mind and philosophy were carried out with full regard for how we perceive the world and how to best describe that interaction with inventive language and strange music. Koethe's work is exceedingly dry and is probably an acquired taste. These ambitious meditative poems are a beautiful and shattering achievement. Wordsworth, Stevens, Eliot and Ashbery are all internalized in this demanding record of one's man's inner life. There's a problem loading this menu right now.

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Best Constructor Poems | Poetry

He is an heir to Wallace Stevens and John Ashbery and, like them, he gives us the sensation of thinking itself, of a certain fleeting, daily, solitary consciousness rescued from oblivion and held aloft. Thanks for signing up! We've emailed you instructions for claiming your free e-book. Tell us more about what you like to read so we can send you the best offers and opportunities. By submitting your email address, you understand that you will receive email communications from Bookperk and other HarperCollins services.

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Editorial Reviews

Please note that your username is an e-mail address. Download your e-book s from your bookshelf. Specialty Booksellers Interest-specific online venues will often provide a book buying opportunity. International Customers If you are located outside the U. About Product Details "John Koethe's The Constructor is a scrupulous, elegant account of the meditative intellect as an instrument continually registering the passage of time.

Exquisitely modulated and brutally honest, these poems would be harrowing were they not so seductively beautiful. No one writing in this country today sees as deeply as Koethe into the tears that lie at the heart of things, and no contemporary investigation of the life of the mind may be called complete that does not accommodate the lush intricacy of his terrifying recognitions. HarperCollins e-books On Sale: Tropic of Squalor by Mary Karr.

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