The Real Subject: Queries and Conjectures of Jacob Delafon with Sample Poems

by Keith Waldrop

The Real Subject is not exactly a novel and not really a poem, though it contains some verses and is not without characters. Jacob Delafon, whose musings are here presented, is a man late in life who has gotten around-at least in his own mind-read a great deal, unsystematically, thought (with even less system) about what he has seen, heard, what he comes up against. He is, in fact, a unique geezer, whose trains of thought seem often on tracks without station or schedule. To move one to another of Jacob Delfon's turns of mind and twisted meditations requires, not fast, but careful footwork. There is no set path. The interest is in the steps.

Genres: Poetry

67 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

American poet and academic, author of numerous books of poetry and prose, translator of the works of Claude Royet-Journoud, Anne-Marie Albiach, Edmond Jabès, Charles Baudelaire, and others.

Reviews

[Carrie]

The real subject is its subjectlessness. I don't really understand the "sample poems" and what are they samples of but I kind of, maybe realized that they are not Keith's poems but Jacob's and then it kind of makes sense. Not the best Keith Waldrop book I've read but still retaining a sort of Waldropian questioning.

[Katie]

Solipsism at its most charming...

[Jeffrey Parker]

Starting with The Silhouette of the Bridge, I have been loving every book of Keith Waldrop’s, and The Real Subject is no exception. His writing can be mysterious in meaning but beautiful in flow and structure and imagination and when all parts come together, as they did for me in this book, I find it difficult to put down. I especially enjoyed the individual poems that were interspersed. They were short but a joy to read, in the style I first enjoyed when reading Transcendental Studies.