The Landing of Rochambeau

by Michael Davidson

Poetry. THE LANDING OF ROCHAMBEAU is a collection of poems and prose pieces circling the problem of historical knowledge. Language is not simply a vehicle for representing one's time, but a material force in its creation. Hence the poems attempt to investigate the boundaries between daily talk and the social environment. "...[A] grand adventure in the difficulty we have with words; that close to the difficulty we have with marriage and with living alone, the field of immediate experience the poems come from and return to. His wit is never disengaged or distancing from his passional reality that ultimately becomes our own passional reality, our continued possibility of keeping the roots of feeling alive and vulnerable"—Robert Duncan.

80 pages, paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Born in Oakland, California on December 18, 1944, Michael Davidson attended San Francisco State University and continued his graduate degrees at The State University of New York at Buffalo. He is currently Distinguished Professor of English at the University of California, San Diego in La Jolla.

In addition to being a widely published poet and poetry editor (he is represented in the 2004 edition of Best American Poetry by a poem entitled "Bad Modernism"), Davidson is known for insightful literary criticism, his work in disability studies, and for the meticulous editing of the monumental George Oppen, New Collected Poems.

Reviews

[Alan Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

some of these i really liked, some reminded me that i really am not sure i actually get poetry