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SELECTED POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS: 1969-1991

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SELECTED POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS: 1969-1991

by Matthews, William

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About This Item

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1992. 1st edition, blue cloth spine, w/dj. Signed by Matthews on the title page. A fine selection of the poet's work, pp. 200, including an Index of Titles and First Lines. Scarce signed. Bright and fine, in like jacket.

Synopsis

"The road is what the car drinks/traveling on its tongue of light/all the way home." With lines like these William Matthews has created a body of work that stands alone in American poetry. Witty, sophisticated, yet lucid, his poems bring the reader refreshing insights into the everyday world of sports, music, wine, psychology, homes, pets, love, children, and literature. In the course of a brilliant career Matthews has also translated poems from French, Latin, and Bulgarian. In this first selection culled from his complete body of work, readers who have never sampled Matthews's poetry, or who cannot find it in print, will be able to take the measure of one of our most versatile and original poets. Matthews characteristically watches "the lights come on/in the valley, like bright type/being set in another language." Illuminating and thoughtful, his poems speak the truth in a way that prompted Peter Stitt, one of our most respected critics, to write that "William Matthews may be the wisest poet of his generation." In writing about W.H. Auden, Matthews could be describing himself: "The language has used him/ well and passed him through./We get what he has collected." This book, which includes some previously uncollected poems and translations, also draws on nine previous volumes: Ruining the New Road, Sleek for the Long Flight, Sticks & Stones, Rising and Falling, Selected Translations from Jean Follain, Flood, A Happy Childhood (that astonishing collection of poems with titles from Freud), Foreseeable Futures, and Blues If You Want, as well as translations from Martial and contemporary Bulgarian poets. "Our true subject is loneliness," he writes. "We've been divorced 1.5 times/per heart." "But think/with your body: not to be dead is to be/sexual, vivid, tender and harsh, a riot/of mixed feelings, and able to choose."

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Details

Bookseller
Jett W. Whitehead Rare Books (ABAA) US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
3626
Title
SELECTED POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS: 1969-1991
Author
Matthews, William
Book Condition
Used
Quantity Available
1
Publisher
Houghton Mifflin
Place of Publication
Boston
Date Published
1992
Keywords
poetry signed
Bookseller catalogs
Signed Books;

Terms of Sale

Jett W. Whitehead Rare Books (ABAA)

All books are fully guaranteed as described, and are returnable within seven days.

About the Seller

Jett W. Whitehead Rare Books (ABAA)

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2005
Bay City, Michigan

About Jett W. Whitehead Rare Books (ABAA)

We are full time book dealers specializing in modern poetry. We are members of ABAA, ILAB, Midwest Antiquarian Booksellers Assn.

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Title Page
A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...
Fine
A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
Cloth
"Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
Jacket
Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
Spine
The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....

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