Ampersand Revisited by Simeon Berry (English) Paperback Book

The Nile on eBay   Ampersand Revisited by Simeon Berry

Berry's Ampersand Revisted is a lurid, lyrical trio of open prose poems marking up the blueprint of familial myth-making.

FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description

Berry's Ampersand Revisted is a lurid, lyrical trio of open prose poems marking up the blueprint of familial myth-making.

Flap

Ampersand Revisited is an inverted Odyssey, etched in searing--downright entomological--precision. " Ampersand Revisited tracks a father's retreat from occult ways of knowing through the wounded meshwork of the son's very grammar: it is a kind of Odyssey , inverted. Magical powers--ancient craftiness--might make the epic hero, but they are an impossible burden to live with in the Manichean, and very American, riddle that forges Ampersand 's poeisis. Crossed & re-crossed with sex & suicide, school & mystery school, Ampersand Revisited riddles the drama not so much of the father's departure, but of his return. It is the vivid, laconic gloss of the ravages of mystical knowing. The son seeks the father through literature and sex while the mother does her Penelope work--her oblivion and recollection--by taking up with her coke-dealing suitor. And somehow a boy becomes a man. Ampersand Revisited does not speak through a Homeric mouth, but instead, through the Mallarmean page: everything in it is marked, marled by textuality: "the vague, diacritical marks of used condoms," "half-finished light like the burned church of an idea," "the spent hexagram of cigarettes & withered latex," or here, why not enjoy a sentence in its entirety: "The low afternoon light solders the sliding glass door into a stab of gold circuitry you step through, wincing, as you encounter the aphasic grammar of the falling snow." Either language is the error out of which we proceed or the "warped platelet" through which Totality is given to us, and according to which we chart and gloss the intricate incommensurables that either corrupt or enlighten--but I should not say or. I should say &: "Perhaps the reason why I've loved the direct address all these years / is because you can / talk to the beloved & the reader / without each one really knowing / about the other." Ampersand Revisited is a haunting, an original achievement: in its tenderness; in its exhausted, even sore limpidity, I find more & more surprises, more gifts. I have read it again & again. --Ariana Reines

Author Biography

Simeon Berry has been an Associate Editor for Ploughshares, and won a Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist Grant and a Career Chapter Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters. His work has appeared in Crazyhorse, AGNI, Colorado Review, Blackbird, DIAGRAM, The Iowa Review, American Letters & Commentary, and many other journals. His second book, Monograph, won the 2014 National Poetry Series (University of Georgia Press). He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

Review

"Simeon Berry is an alchemist. He unlatches memory from time; transforms the cold silence of observation into flashing thought. Here, boxed moments are packed and unpacked, shuffled and re-inhabited. Berry revisits his personal history with both inscription and divination, in an attempt to bring his understanding into the present tense. In Ampersand Revisited, the blueprints of the past are still being drawn, and time is no longer obligated to keep its promise of inflexibility." --Richard Siken "In Ampersand Revisited, Simeon Berry offers up a poetic bildungsroman of dazzling brio and brash inventiveness, a worthy successor to some of the great contemporary efforts in this mode: one hears echoes, among others, of Lowell's Life Studies, Hejinian's My Life and Brainard's I Remember. Like these works, it is a work of formal risk-taking, of pathos alternating with wry humor, and, ultimately, of self-regard transfiguring to a hard-won self-awareness. Debut collections as accomplished at this are a very rare thing indeed." --David Wojahn

Review Quote

"Simeon Berry is an alchemist. He unlatches memory from time; transforms the cold silence of observation into flashing thought. Here, boxed moments are packed and unpacked, shuffled and re-inhabited. Berry revisits his personal history with both inscription and divination, in an attempt to bring his understanding into the present tense. In Ampersand Revisited , the blueprints of the past are still being drawn, and time is no longer obligated to keep its promise of inflexibility."

Description for Sales People

The 2013 National Poetry Series selection, chosen by Ariana Reines. Established in 1978 by legendary editor Dan Halpern, the National Poetry Series has discovered many new and emerging voices and has been instrumental in launching the careers of poets and writers such as Billy Collins, Mark Doty, Denis Johnson, Cole Swensen, Thylias Moss, Mark Levine, and Dionisio D. Martinez. Ampersand Revisited, the winner of the National Poetry Series open competition, is a lurid, lyrical trio of open prose poems marking up the blueprint of familial myth-making. Consisting of three long poems, Ampersand Revisited marks up the blueprint of family myths, tracing the legacy of a father drawn toward the occult and a mother immured in a personality disorder. Circumscribed by a growing awareness of erotic consequences, the speaker struggles to navigate a spiritual and anatomical landscape that is equal parts lyrical and lurid. A deft balancing act between sublimation and the sublime, Berry's narrative moves effortlessly through open prose forms, illuminating each psychic Venn diagram as he untangles illness from intuitive information, seeking the troubling crux at the heart of the ineffable.

Details ISBN1934200921 Author Simeon Berry Short Title AMPERSAND REVISITED Pages 96 Publisher Fence Books Series National Poetry Language English ISBN-10 1934200921 ISBN-13 9781934200926 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 811.6 Year 2015 Publication Date 2015-05-05 Imprint Fence Books Audience General We've got this

At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it.With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love!

TheNile_Item_ID:137600840;