Research Catalog

Title

New and selected poems, 1956-1996 / Philip Appleman.

Author

Appleman, Philip, 1926-

Publication

Fayetteville : University of Arkansas Press, 1996.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 264 pages; 25 cm

Summary

• With an astonishing command of nature imagery, from sparrows to mastodons, Philip Appleman can deftly weave into a single poem an intricate pattern of ideas drawn from evolution, humanism, anthropology, religious skepticism, and everyday experience. Appealing to reason as well as to emotion and imagination, he writes poems of lyrical intensity and remarkable narrative depth.
• He creates characters - Eve or Darwin or a failed priest - with such wit, compassion, and subtle humor that they live on the page and surprise us with new insights into joy and sorrow, life and death. Set on the beach at Malibu, in the port of Trieste, or in a Manhattan subway, his poems evoke genuine feeling without sentimentality and transform the personal into the universal.
• . Drawn from six previous books of poetry written over four decades, and with fourteen new poems, this collection shows the power and complexity of Appleman's wide-ranging talent.

Uniform Title

Poems. Selections

Alternative Title

Poems.

Note

• Includes index.

Contents

• To the River (Benares) -- On the Via Veneto (Rome) -- Snow on the Bosporus (Istanbul) -- Dolphins (Manzanillo) -- Crystal Anniversary -- Vigil -- A Promise -- The Knight's Tale -- Kites on a Windy Day -- Remembering the Great Depression -- Things to Do with Railroads -- Success Story -- Day of the Hawk -- To the Garbage Collectors in Bloomington, Indiana, the First Pickup of the New Year -- Four Measures: Earth, Air, Water, Fire -- A Poem for St. Valentine's Day -- Middle of the Night -- Summer Love and Surf -- At the Nativity Bar and Poolroom (Bethlehem) -- The Path of Renunciation (Calcutta) -- Thinking of Noubli Laroussi (Algeria) -- Three Haiku, Two Tanka (Kyoto) -- A Word to Socrates -- A Thought for Suse Pollok -- Last Lines for a Baritone -- Sweet Life -- You Said, That's the Fourth Bird This Year to Hit Our Picture Window -- Butterwort -- Old Thing -- Town and Gown -- Enemy -- Memo to the 21st Century -- Nobody Dies in the Spring -- Land of Cold Sun --
• Ten Definitions of Lifetime -- Landing Pattern -- Kicking Sea Urchins -- What the U.S. Bureau of Customs Will Cry at Public Auction on June 5 -- October Spring -- The Pill and the Hundred-Yard Dash -- Bicentennial: The Course of Empire -- Fighting the Bureaucracy -- New Year's Resolution -- Seeing into Bedrooms -- "Your Papers, Please" -- East Hampton: The Structure of Sound -- Truth -- Westhampton Cemetery -- Serpent -- Revision -- The Tennis Player Waits for What Waits for the Tennis Player -- Red Kite -- Central Park: The Anatomy Lesson -- Caravan -- Revolution -- Message -- Murder -- For Lucia and the Black Widows of Sperlonga -- Afterward -- Alive -- At the End of the World -- On a Morning Full of Sun -- The Persistence of Memory -- Peace with Honor -- Waiting for the Fire -- Love Poem -- Ars Poetica -- The Girl Who Hated Threes -- Savior -- Heart of Stone -- Birthday Card to My Mother -- Congenial Poet Desires Intense Relationship with Warm, Intelligent Poem --
• This Moment -- First Snow -- If Martha Is a Model Mother-in-Law, She is Definitely the Latest Model -- Economics -- In Two Degrees of Cold -- A Kind of Fruitfulness -- Better Half -- Love in the Rain -- Scrapbook -- The Skeletons of Dreams -- Nostalgie de la Boue -- State of Nature -- The Hand-Ax -- In Andalucia -- "Black-Footed Ferret Endangered" -- The Faith-Healer Speaks -- Darwin's Bestiary -- Prologue -- The Ant -- The Worm -- The Rabbit -- The Gossamer -- Euphorias -- Waldorf-Astoria Euphoria -- Hunkydoria Euphoria -- How Evolution Came to Indiana -- Mr. Extinction, Meet Ms. Survival -- How My Light Is Spent -- "Sea Otter Survival Assured" -- On the Beagle -- The Voyage Home -- Gathering at the River -- Eve -- An Eye for an Eye -- Noah -- Heavenly Body -- Sarah -- Sensual Music -- Our Tree -- Gertrude -- Anniversary -- The Trickle-Down Theory of Happiness -- Last-Minute Message for a Time Capsule -- Bildad -- Night Thoughts -- David --
• Watching Her Sleep -- Gifts -- Jonah -- Fleas -- Before You Push the Red Button -- And Then the Perfect Truth of Hatred -- Mary -- Credo -- Coast to Coast -- Judas -- Heading North -- Martha -- Lighting Your Birthday Cake -- Jesus -- But the Daisies Will Not Be Deceived by the Gods -- Kissing the Aborigines -- Them -- Eulogy -- Days One through Six, Etc -- Superstition -- Possessed -- How to Live -- Gravity -- Never-Never Land -- A Priest Forever -- Vasectomy -- Creation -- Will -- Holding On.

ISBN

• 1557284199 (cloth : alk. paper)
• 1557284202 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

95050626

OCLC

ocm33897440

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries