by Don Bogen
University of Chicago Press, 2009
eISBN: 978-0-226-06314-0 | Paper: 978-0-226-06313-3
Library of Congress Classification PS3552.O4337A79 2009
Dewey Decimal Classification 811.54

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ABOUT THIS BOOK


from Bagatelles


 


Bagatelles,


mere gestures


                        in dry air,


each pluck a dot,


strokes marked on silence


reaching into the dark. 


Beauty is strict,


                          it passes: 


an echo, a wedge


of harmony, sudden,


broken—Who goes there?


An Algebra is an interwoven collection of eight sequences and sixteen individual poems, where images and phrases recur in new contexts, connecting and suspending thoughts,   emotions and insights. By turns, the poems leap from the public realm of urban decay and outsourcing to the intimacies of family life, from a street mime to a haunting dream, from elegy to lyric evocation. Wholeness and brokenness intertwine in the book; glimpsed patterns and startling disjunctions drive its explorations.


An Algebra is a work of changing equivalents, a search for balance in a world of transformation and loss. It is a brilliantly constructed, moving book by a poet who has achieved a new level of imaginative expression and skill.


Praise for After the Splendid Display


“In his best work . . . conscience and craft fuse seamlessly, and the result is original and arresting."—The Nation




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