Tryst: Volume 24

By Angie Estes

Book Overview

Angie Estes' Tryst was named one of two finalists for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. The citation called it "a collection of poems remarkable for its variety of subjects, array of genres and nimble use of language."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0932440355
• ISBN13: 9780932440358
• Release Date: April 2009
• Publisher: Oberlin College Press
• Length: 86 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.9" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A Wonderful Collection

Estes's Tryst is an amazing work, the hallmark of which is the joy that radiates from every page...joy in language, joy in love, joy in popular culture, joy in the classics, joy in life. Estes can make you laugh and make you cry. She can baffle one minute and enlighten you the next. She plays games with her readers, and she doesn't mind appearing even a little foolish herself as she leads us gleefully through her meditations on experience, art, music, books, history, and everything that has caught her very keen eye. The wealth of detail Estes brings to her work is rewarding and satisfying, but her ability to play with these details, to join, compare, juggle those things that seem dissimilar bears the mark of genius. Probably even more compelling is Estes's tone, her relationship with her reader. Do you remember that epigraph from The Great Gatsby? Fitzgerald writes, Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce high, bounce for her too, Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, I must have you!" Estes is that high-bouncing lover. We, her readers, watch her stunning performance, we see her work feverishly to please us as she reaches for the heavens. And we are overwhelmed. We want her. We crave her poems. We want to immerse ourselves in her world. Her joy and her energy and her willingness to exert herself so generously compel us irresistibly. I hope Estes keeps looking, living, and writing. We will be well rewarded by every poem she offers us. I eagerly await her next book, and I unreservedly recommend Tryst.