Song and Dance: Poems

By Alan Shapiro

Book Overview

The poems in Alan Shapiro's seventh collection, Song and Dance, intimately describe the complicated feelings that attend the catastrophic loss of a loved one. In 1998, Shapiro's brother, David, an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618152857
• ISBN13: 9780618152858
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Length: 59 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.5" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

An Astonishing Book

Shapiro writes of his brother, a performer who recently died at a young age, and he makes use of personal memories and show business songs in ironic and unexpected ways. This is not a collection of poetry in the usual sense; it accumulates power in the manner of a novel while having the precise beauty of poetry. If there is any justice, it will be a finalist for all of the prizes. Alan Shapiro is a fine poet, but the appeal of this book goes far beyond the typical readership of poetry. This is a book that will speak to anyone who loves literature, but also to anyone who had suffered grief. It is an unsentimental celebration of that which endures after a tragedy.