The Perishing

By Sherod Santos

Book Overview

This collection's searing poems travel between the frozen moment of personal time and the inexorable sweep of history. The poet tracks genocide's record from Tamerlane to Pol Pot, an exiled tyrant's return to the killing fields, and Penelope's embracing her inevitable loss of Odysseus upon his return. In each poem, Santos tests the delicate balance between life and art.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393325768
• ISBN13: 9780393325768
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 84 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Santos, Santos, everywhere, but not a drop to read

I've been reading Santos for about 39 years now, and I must say this book contains the second, third, eigth, tenth, fifteenth, and twentieth best poems I've read in that time. Actually I've become so familiar with Santos that before I opened the book I already knew it would be full of poems. Or should I say brimming with poetry. Perhaps Mr. Santos could help me make that decision as he is apparently America's greatest master of the English language. But I digress. In "The Perishing: Poems", Sherod paints a portrait of the shadows that haunt our souls, the monsters we keep hidden away in a box under our collective beds, and the dirty diapers of our hearts that give us a collective rash on our hearts' little tushes. I must conclude this review by saying that Sherod Santos probably owns a poetry machine that he invented to write brilliant poetry, but that will come in good time my friend. A word is like a mouse that lives under your floorboards, and the house of Santos's head must be teeming with mice, such that he has to lure them out with the pen and paper on which he writes his poems. And liberty, and justice for all. And in conclusion, Sherod Santos must have a poetry machine he invented to write poetry for him.