Blue Colonial

By David Roderick

Book Overview

"David Roderick's poems are exquisitely made with language that is rich and precise. . . . He convinces us that we are all pilgrims committing our acts of courage as well as our little crimes. This book is immensely rewarding."--James Tate In Blue Colonial, David Roderick memorializes his hometown by excavating and re-imagining its individual and collective histories. Set in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where English colonists first settled in 1620, Blue Colonial uses dramatic and narrative effects to explore the burdens of historical inheritance: vanished Native American tribes, the seeds of American culture, and our physical and psychological encroachment upon the natural landscape. Whether he is writing about historical legacy or his own backyard, Roderick has arrived at a voice of distinct solitariness and precise observation. With passion and sly wit, he has composed a strangely luminous book, a poetry collection that resonates with gravity, fine music, and a deep regard for the task of being human in the world. With an introduction by Robert Pinsky.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0977639517
• ISBN13: 9780977639519
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Joy and Thought and Mystery

David Roderick's Blue Colonial is a briliant stew of thought bloomed into a tangible feast of mystery and form. Who am I to say, really, but I believe this book will be much talk-about and much-admired for many years to come. I'd suggest it to my friends who can't stand a dram of poetry, because Roderick's work is packed with iron pots and cordwood and pails of clotted cleam; it's full of unfussy beauty while at the same time insisting that its mysterious objects be linked with the more difficult mysteries of thought.

Blue Colonial by David Roderick

A unique book of poems that leads the reader on a journey into the past of our own Massachusetts and his own boyhood in the same region. Well written, thoughtful and enjoyable. Mr. Roderick has done very well here. I anticipate buying his next book of poetry. Jim Lewis