Door to a Noisy Room

By Peter Waldor

Book Overview

"Waldor's spare irony--sometimes tender, sometimes bawdy--deals in dichotomies: love and hate, frailty and strength, fear and faith. These elliptical and colloquial lyrics draw equally from parable, prayer, and elegy. Hesitating on the threshold between isolation and community, the poet focuses a distortingly accurate microscope on what matters in our lives. "...familial, humane, and loyal to the good people and the simple delights of this world."--Publishers Weekly

"It's such a delight when something catches you by surprise and makes you read on--and on. So it is with Waldor, a superb lyric, gnomic and Gnostic poet."--Gerald Stern

"The reader must learn to forfeit expectation and simply tune in, like listening to a koan...these poems generously reward the concentration their language demands. Waldor asks us to listen to the noisy world as he hears it, and he opens our ears."--Boston Review

"What strange rooms and quirky music Waldor's poems open onto. His vision proves to us that the imaginal and the rational share equal claims on perception. The heart/mind of this work spiritualizes the material and materializes the soul."--Li-Young Lee

"Door to a Noisy Room has the darkness, glitter, and hardness of obsidian. In this work, the heat of the passions has cooled to an elemental simplicity. Like obsidian the poems have been polished into jewels or napped to the keenest blade. They are beautiful and they are sharp."--Lynn Emanuel

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1882295668
• ISBN13: 9781882295661
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Alice James Books
• Length: 80 Pages
• Weight: 0.27 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.1" x 5.6" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Warm, shimmering poems about love, history, family and the Bible

Peter Waldor's poems make me pause, stop, stumble and feel grateful. They take a long, close look at the pleasures and satisfactions of family life. In a world that is frightening and terrifying, it is exhilarating to read love poems written by a man who revels in his roles as father and son. Waldor also writes beautifully about the Old Testament, and neighborhoods in New Jersey. He takes nothing for granted and notes it all. Check out, "Warmth," "Goodbye Manny Seepe," "Spine," "Pear of My Nose," "Dancer" and "Blue Bells." They are a joy.