Disfortune: Poems (Wesleyan Poetry)

By Joe Wenderoth

Book Overview

Wenderoth's poetry features Terse and haunting lyrics that mark a new intimacy with the world

Disfortune is not in the mainstream of American poetic speech, nor is it easily placed into any of the well-known poetic speech-camps that have arisen on its margins. Terse, haunting lyrics expose the irreducible contradictions of living, wherein "the talking-singing, the whole talking-/singing ball of yarn, begins to unravel." Deceptively casual in tone, these poems offer startling confrontations with "the unoriginal/oblivion," with "the contrived delicacy/of what is emptied and kept." Joe Wenderoth sees "fortune" as the mute history of events proceeding toward the ultimate security; his poems arise from "disfortune," from the need "Just to sing the song that's kept you/quiet/all this time." This book is a rare occurrence, marking not only a new intimacy with the world, but also a remembering of the determined motion of intimacy itself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0819512265
• ISBN13: 9780819512260
• Release Date: August 1995
• Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
• Length: 84 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.6" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up