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The Insistence of Beauty: Poems
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 811
EAN: 9780393327434
ISBN: 0393327434
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 96
Publication Date: March 06, 2006
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Studio: W. W. Norton
Editorial Review:
An evocation of beauty's often-surprising manifestations—even in the face of tragedy."Beauty isn't nice. Beauty isn't fair…" So, in part, states an epigraph for this stunning new collection, his thirteenth, by the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry (2000). First traversing betrayal and loss, Stephen Dunn then moves to speak of new love, with its attendant pleasures and questioning. The title poem, perhaps emblematic of the book as a whole, is evocative of beauty's often surprising manifestations—even in the light of tragedy—as on that terrible day "when those silver planes came out of the perfect blue."Because beauty jars us, makes us look twice, it is as startling as a good poem, and as insistent. Fortunately, it is never too late to search for the right words for what we've seen, felt, endured. With quiet authority Dunn enacts what it feels like to be a particular man at a particular juncture of his life—struggling not to deny, but to name, then rename.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Not His Best
Different Hours, Dunn's Pulitzer Prize winning collection has been a staple on my bookshelf since it came out. Since then, I've hunted down most of his collections and love his work dearly, so I was very excited for this new colleciton to come out. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations. His clear and simple language remains, but if fails to conjure up the same kind of emotional breadth that his previous work successfully does. I think that part of the problem may lie in the subject ... Read More
Rating:  - A Big Disappointment
S.Dunn's world seems to have shrunk to the size of a walnut since he won the Pulitzer Prize. The poems in this new collection lack oxygen. They are without energy, without spark. Even thinking about the 9/11 tragedy fails to energize Dunn's self-absorbing mumblings.
The old saying is true: "A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package."
Rating:  - "Insistence" of Beautiful Poems
Dunn's incisive, gorgeous gifts for entering the uncertain landscapes of living have never felt laid so bare as they do in "Insistence of Beauty" or so very fearless. From poems that explore Achilles exposing his heels for the cause of love, or results of the `grudges' endemic to the human condition, or whether certain stories become ours to tell if they come to us through our beloved, to poems amazed that love seems to have a life all its own - how we carry on with the weight and loveliness of it, ... Read More
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