Against Romance

By Michael Blumenthal

Book Overview

Poetry. A reprinted edition of the celebrated 1987 Penguin edition (a collection) by the 1985 winner of the Academy of American Poets Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award. "Blumenthal's new... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670818682
• ISBN13: 9780670818686
• Release Date: September 1987
• Publisher: The Viking Press
• Length: 110 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 20.0" x 20.0" x 20.0"

Customer Reviews

a welcome reissue

Published in 1987 and then forgotten until this reissue. Blumenthal's focus is like Woody Allen's joke on love: two elderly women are at a resort and complaining about the food---one says it tastes terrible and the other says yes and such small portions.His poems ratchet back and forth on this----with "Against Romance" taking a bleaker view, nailing those lovers who fall in love with the idea of it, not the reality("they become the myths of themselves") to the good natured "Manners" about loving the flaws, not the perfections("it's the things unsaid/the warn rudities of late night/that most move you and you are wild for the slurped sounds of the truly decent/the I chew-with -my-mouth-open look of the one you will love forever.") The closer poem, "The End" is excellent, telling us its is better to ,as a Woody character once said, put your art into your life, than your life into your art"(because he no longer wanted to turn each morning for the remainder of his days and find only air beside him,...because he knew art was merely another currency in the vast domain of a decent life..." he turns toward love and the future). Take a read.