The Pilot Star Elegies: Poems

By Sherod Santos

Book Overview

The centerpiece of this collection, Elegy for My Sister, is a sequence of poems on the suicide of the poet's sister in which he gathers, piece by piece, the scattered fragments of his sister's life. In other poems, Santos follows this elegiac theme into the broader contexts of myth and contemporary history to explore the ways each private loss is overlaid by those harrowing conditions by which our century defines itself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393320499
• ISBN13: 9780393320497
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 104 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Beautiful and Intense

This is one of the books I return to most often--it's not the least bit sentimental. On the contrary, it's the book's tough-mindedness that makes it a true accomplishment, one that is sure to last through generations of readers.

Heartbreakingly beautiful, honest, and profound!

I can think of no other book -- poetry or prose -- which comes closer to understanding the tragedy of suicide.