New Selected Poems, 1970-1985

by Jerome Rothenberg

Acclaimed poet and translator, editor of such ground-breaking journals and anthologies as Alcheringa and Technicians of the Sacred, pioneer in the fields of performance poetry and ethnopoetics, Jerome Rothenberg is a literary radical and a major force in American poetry. Gathered here in his New Selected Poems 1970-1985 are pivotal poems from four previous New Directions collections, Poland/1931 (1974), A Seneca Journal (1978), Vienna Blood (1980), and That Dada Strain (1983). Rothenberg describes his new selection as “an attempt to isolate in the work of the last fifteen years (and a little more) the thread of a single long poem or sequence [in which] figures and voice’s without context in the earlier books…find a location and a shape.” Open-ended, explorative, and exuberantly and irreverently epic, the sequence ends with two new and previously uncollected poems, “15 Flower World Variations” and “Visions of Jesus.”

Genres: Poetry

149 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Jerome Rothenberg is an internationally known American poet, translator and anthologist who is noted for his work in ethnopoetics and poetry performance.

Reviews

[Kristin]

Hmm, this was poetry all right. I'm not big on poetry and only like two poets that I know of (Yehuda Amichai and Pablo Neruda)-- as such, it was fairly senseless and not very enjoyable to me, but I could recognize the artistry. It stops short of word salad; you can actually glean faint, fleetingly cohesive impressions and settings from the words. I like that it's Jewish poetry. I checked it out after learning about the author from hearing about his very recent death. To be honest, I judged this book by its cover, and I still don't understand the cover at all. It's a black and white, shadowed, incomprehensible image that appears to depict people of various genders engaged in some kind of orgy, dressed in 1980s dominatrix outfits, while the author, separately near them, looks like an orchestra conductor. It makes no sense, and has no connection the work, and served to make me needlessly wary of the content. On the other hand, the cover might draw in some edgy gutter punk and surprise them with impressions of Jewishness and antisemitism in a historic Poland.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Mills College Library]

811.54 R8461n 1986