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A New Book From Rome

by John Wieners

4.86 of 5 stars 4.86 · rating details · 7 ratings · 1 review

Hardcover, 160 pages

Published March 1st 2010 by Bootstrap Press

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Jun 13, 2010 Noriyuko 'Pat' rated it 4 of 5 stars

A nice effort on the part of Bootstrap Press to bring Wieners' poems from his 1969 journal to life in a hardcover, limited edition book. Good prefatory material, charming afterwords by Bill Berkson and Charles Shively, and little treats like loose photographs of John Wieners included in the book, though the $65 I paid for it to be shipped here was a bit much, particularly considering the editors didn't send me the 12 other books people in the U.S. received for their money. The book itself is als...more A nice effort on the part of Bootstrap Press to bring Wieners' poems from his 1969 journal to life in a hardcover, limited edition book. Good prefatory material, charming afterwords by Bill Berkson and Charles Shively, and little treats like loose photographs of John Wieners included in the book, though the $65 I paid for it to be shipped here was a bit much, particularly considering the editors didn't send me the 12 other books people in the U.S. received for their money. The book itself is also really not that pretty. In fact, the typeface is small and downright ugly; the decision to include some scans of the actual journal alongside typed out versions felt random at best; and the choice to end the book with a group of scans of the journal without the typed versions alongside struck me as a bit lazy! Ah well.

In other words, this is a book for hardcore Wieners fans only, really, as there is much better work of his published in the Black Sparrow editions. Indeed, the recently published 'Book of Prophecies' (also through Bootstrap) contains far better material at a much more livable price.

That said, the occasional gems that shine through here make me more than happy with the book. While we must all suffer through some of Wieners' absurdly sentimental clap-trap (i.e., 'The weight of afternoon misery / dampens every thought with woe, / wondering what to do, where to go'), such moments are almost immediately redeemed by Wieners' demented lyrical heartbreak poems - like the opening two stanzas from a longer poem called 'Solitary Pleasure', detailing (probably, but not totally sure) Wieners' decades-long unrequited love for Robert Creeley:

I wanted a companion, even a lover
to fill the empty mornings, as I knew them
on Columbus and California, but you guarded your
house too well, and the old days were over,
the old nights of jazzing around. You returned to the country alone
with your wife, and children, and I have grieved ever since.

By the seashore, in bed it was worse, days I thought it over
but nights you came back, harder then, whispering under the sheets

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Jul 22, 2012 Amr marked it as to-read

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Shelves: poetry

Dec 04, 2010 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Oct 03, 2010 Ryan Gallagher rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bootstrap, poetry

Oct 03, 2010 Derek Fenner added it

Shelves: bootstrap

Sep 19, 2010 Zachary Martin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

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