Grazing: Poems

By Ira Sadoff

An experienced and highly respected poet, Ira Sadoff crafts hard-edged scenes, honed on the stuff of real life. From the unblinking honesty of "My Mother's Funeral" to the cultural worship of "At the Movies," Sadoff carves out, with each remarkable line, an unforgettable sensuousness.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252067371
• ISBN13: 9780252067372
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Wow.

Ira Sadoff, Grazing (University of Illinois Press, 1998) I find it very hard to write reviews of Ira Sadoff's books; there's nothing I can say about Sadoff's work that will be objective in the least. I am a slavish fan to the pen of Ira Sadoff, and find each of his books to be pure delight. So when I say that Grazing may well be Sadoff's best book (arguably, the brilliant Emotional Traffic stacks up), it's saying something. Grazing is, above all, an angry book, and the poems where it's not angry seem almost as if they're lulls during the storm. And despite the fact that Sadoff is one of those "academic" poets who are so often sneered at in the small press for being dry, dusty, and antiquated, it's impossible to read Grazing and not feel anger radiating off the pages. After all this anger, the book's final piece, "The Inner Life," resounds with a desolation it might not otherwise have. It's impossible to instill a sense of the way this poem works with the rest of the book by excerpting it here, but it still deserves quotation: ..."Going off like a buzzer in a factory, where we charge out of the doors denouncing the one who sticks his head in a stack of papers then comes out shrugging, giving us the thumb."... This is powerful stuff, folks, and well worth the time it takes to hunt down. Get to know the work of Ira Sadoff. The man is amazing. *****

"Poetry that's whimsical and wise"

: Sunday Chicago Tribune Book Section--Editor's Choice! "Celebration abounds but never gives way to sentimentalism in this sixth volume of poetry by veteran author Ira Sadoff. Often spare in his descriptions, Sadoff allows objects and observations to suggest their stories rather than overstate them. In many of the poems, a whimsical but wise voice presides, especially in 'An Improbable Delirium,' where a speaker slyly ruminates: 'Something tells me it's the job of poetry/ to bring some wretched character out on stage,/ to gesture wildly, giving a soliloquy....'"--Carolyn Alessio, deputy editor