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Against Silence: Poems
An urgent new collection from the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and “one of the undisputed master poets of our time” (Craig Morgan Teicher, NPR)
Words, voices reek of the worlds from which they
different worlds, each with its all but palpable
aroma, its parameters, limitations, promise.
Words―there is a gap, nonetheless always
and forever, between words and the world―
slip, slide, are imprecise, BLIND, perish.
•
Set up a situation,―
. . . then reveal an abyss.
For more than fifty years, Frank Bidart has given voice to the inner self, to the depths of his own psyche and the unforgettable characters that populate his poems. In Against Silence , the Pulitzer Prize winner’s eleventh collection of poetry, Bidart writes of the cycles we cannot escape and the feelings we cannot forget. Our history is not a tabula rasa but a repeating, refining story of love and hate, of words spoken and old cruelties enacted. Moving among the dead and the living, the figures of his life and of his past, Bidart calls reality forth―with nothing settled and nothing forgotten, we must speak.
Words, voices reek of the worlds from which they
different worlds, each with its all but palpable
aroma, its parameters, limitations, promise.
Words―there is a gap, nonetheless always
and forever, between words and the world―
slip, slide, are imprecise, BLIND, perish.
•
Set up a situation,―
. . . then reveal an abyss.
For more than fifty years, Frank Bidart has given voice to the inner self, to the depths of his own psyche and the unforgettable characters that populate his poems. In Against Silence , the Pulitzer Prize winner’s eleventh collection of poetry, Bidart writes of the cycles we cannot escape and the feelings we cannot forget. Our history is not a tabula rasa but a repeating, refining story of love and hate, of words spoken and old cruelties enacted. Moving among the dead and the living, the figures of his life and of his past, Bidart calls reality forth―with nothing settled and nothing forgotten, we must speak.
80 pages, Hardcover
Published November 2, 2021
10 people are currently reading
324 people want to read
About the author
Frank Bidart
49 books141 followersFrank Bidart is the author of Metaphysical Dog (FSG, 2013), Watching the Spring Festival (FSG, 2008), Star Dust (FSG, 2005), Desire (FSG, 1997), and In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965-90 (FSG, 1990). He has won many prizes, including the Wallace Stevens Award, the 2007 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He teaches at Wellesley College and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews
December 24, 2022
I’ve read Frank Bidart before, but I wasn’t ready then. This time I was. Each poem in this collection released a charge and swelled. I read it twice in one sitting. Philosophical and soul-bearing, Bidart is a masterful artist at the height of his craft. These poems on life and death (that final silence) cast a light on the darkest mysteries of the soul. Bidart is looking back on his life and wondering what it all meant and if language and art had any effect at all. They did because these poems exist. Bidart’s verse may not be restorative, but it does provide the reader a recognition of our common struggle to live and be human.
March 11, 2022
Masterful insight into the structure of a life lived; a reflection on all that has made an individual after the sum total of choices congeal. Paths taken and abandoned - and then looked for even as memory erodes. Sparse yet heavy with meaning; one of the best books of poetry I have read this year.
December 11, 2021
On My Seventy-Eighth
There will be just two at
table tonight,
though to accommodate all those who have
so mattered
and still so matter in my life, the table will be
very long:
though empty. I say to you, Jaya
shoma khalee!
Your place is empty! Your place at my table
is saved
for you. I tried to construct in my soul
your necessary
grave (because you were dead/because you were
flawed/preoccupied,
concentrated on your soul, too often you were
cruel—) but
as I shoveled dirt onto your body, the dirt refused,
soon, to
cling. Those who torment because you know you
loved them
refuse to remain buried. Is anything ever forgotten,
actually forgiven?
Shovel in hand, I saw how little I had
known you.
Tonight, I abjure the wisdom, the illusion of
forgetting. Come,
give up silence. Intolerable the fiction
the rest
is silence. To the dead, to the living:
your place
is empty.
There will be just two at
table tonight,
though to accommodate all those who have
so mattered
and still so matter in my life, the table will be
very long:
though empty. I say to you, Jaya
shoma khalee!
Your place is empty! Your place at my table
is saved
for you. I tried to construct in my soul
your necessary
grave (because you were dead/because you were
flawed/preoccupied,
concentrated on your soul, too often you were
cruel—) but
as I shoveled dirt onto your body, the dirt refused,
soon, to
cling. Those who torment because you know you
loved them
refuse to remain buried. Is anything ever forgotten,
actually forgiven?
Shovel in hand, I saw how little I had
known you.
Tonight, I abjure the wisdom, the illusion of
forgetting. Come,
give up silence. Intolerable the fiction
the rest
is silence. To the dead, to the living:
your place
is empty.
November 19, 2021
This is a poet I've meant to read for a long time. But when I got to a poem bemoaning the "return of white supremacy" I guess I decided he's not really for me.
November 28, 2021
This book was recommended in today’s New York Times.
Luckily I found it in stock at my local bookstore. It’s short, easy to read and hard to read. As in all his poetry, Bidart is a wounded writer, quarrying the dark, annealing his scapel. There are lines that sear the flesh of the mind.
When he writes of desire (the love denied, the love he could not possess) I also imagine James Merrill or Thom Gunn, poets who wrote out of plentitude, their resource equal to everything they attempted. Each made art (witty, wry, exuberant and allusive and sometimes brutal) out of what had wounded him.
Bidart writes out of darkness. Certain poems echo Annemarie Schwarzenbach’s terrifying conversations with an Angel, recorded in her incomparable Death in Persia.
His verse is cryptic, suddenly luminous, a flash witnessed at night across the Mojave. In the lines broken on the page only the afterimage. A blind spot, impenetrable.
Yet on the cover a humorous drawing by Joe Brainard.
Luckily I found it in stock at my local bookstore. It’s short, easy to read and hard to read. As in all his poetry, Bidart is a wounded writer, quarrying the dark, annealing his scapel. There are lines that sear the flesh of the mind.
When he writes of desire (the love denied, the love he could not possess) I also imagine James Merrill or Thom Gunn, poets who wrote out of plentitude, their resource equal to everything they attempted. Each made art (witty, wry, exuberant and allusive and sometimes brutal) out of what had wounded him.
Bidart writes out of darkness. Certain poems echo Annemarie Schwarzenbach’s terrifying conversations with an Angel, recorded in her incomparable Death in Persia.
His verse is cryptic, suddenly luminous, a flash witnessed at night across the Mojave. In the lines broken on the page only the afterimage. A blind spot, impenetrable.
Yet on the cover a humorous drawing by Joe Brainard.
March 1, 2022
My latest in poetry experiments. Didn't quite work for me. Probably not the author's fault. The boom covers some autobiographical material, so political commentary of the disappointed by US variety, some random meditations. Poetry's very much like music, in a way; it either sings to you or it doesn't. This one didn't quite sing for me. User mileage may vary.
November 29, 2021
Bidart is in full-stride as he approaches being an octogenarian! He is a weird inheritor of a Whitman/Ginsburg boundless energy/barbaric yawp married to the ambitious mannerisms/erudition of Crane/Merrill -- and notice how those are all queer American poets? Bidart is definitely vying for THE title "Great Queer American Poet." I have always been fascinated by his explorations of family/solitude, love/hate, lust/disgust, clarity/madness -- in this volume he adds an unexpected meditation on constructed race/human race and meaning/meaninglessness.
"Words Reek Worlds" is one of the greatest things I think he's ever written. A sort of ars poetica for his lifetime of work. If I could give it a 4.5 stars, I would.
"Words Reek Worlds" is one of the greatest things I think he's ever written. A sort of ars poetica for his lifetime of work. If I could give it a 4.5 stars, I would.
November 13, 2023
• "When I tell you I was madly in love with you, you say you know. I say I knew you knew. You say there was no place in nature we could meet. You say this as if you need me to admit something. 'no place in nature, given our natures.' Or is this warning? I say what is happening now is happening only because one of us is dead. You laugh and say, Or both of us! Our words will be weirdly jolly. That light I now envy exists only on this page."
• "You say 'there seems to be a floor beneath ones feet, but there is not. Why must you write this poem?' Memory is punishment. Meat is flesh, but doesn't say 'flesh' when teeth bite into it."
• "You say 'there seems to be a floor beneath ones feet, but there is not. Why must you write this poem?' Memory is punishment. Meat is flesh, but doesn't say 'flesh' when teeth bite into it."
December 16, 2024
I want to give a quote but I can’t. You just have to read it, any Bidart collection if you haven’t. I’ve never taken philosophy and my emotions as serious as Bidart takes philosophy and his emotions. I love reading him so much.
June 6, 2025
All our lives we have heard and reheard words of con-men and tortured
visionaries prophesying
what must happen when the body that you find yourself
•
in at birth
•
the gnarled, old hand
that one day you look down and see
one day you see it is yours
😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨
visionaries prophesying
what must happen when the body that you find yourself
•
in at birth
•
the gnarled, old hand
that one day you look down and see
one day you see it is yours
😮💨😮💨😮💨😮💨
September 29, 2021
Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read and review this title! I’ve been a fan of Bidart’s for a long time and was so thrilled to see a new collection coming out and this didn’t let me down at all! I find Frank Bidart’s poetry so approachable and I appreciated the way that this collection flowed. There were a couple poems that knocked me off my feet and some lines that cut me to my core! Not every poem had this effect, but overall I thought it well worth the read and I can’t wait to add it to my collection!
August 6, 2021
I really loved so much of this book, though a few of the poems lost me. I think it's at its best when it the writing is closest to the title's theme. I believe that a few of the allusions that drove the poems that were lost on me contributed to me not loving certain poems as much as others. Either way, so many clarifying and vibrant lines!
Read
August 6, 2022When I was finishing up my graduate work at North Texas, I spent a lot time around students in the creative writing program, and I remember the poets of the group bemoaning the old guard’s insularity. They were writing poetry for other poets and not for you and me. This collection, Against Silence, (to me) has this same insularity, and it’s a shame because there are flashes of amazing stuff in between.
The quality of writing is great, and it’s clear Bidart knows what he’s doing. But who cares if it doesn’t move you? Some passages did. Most did not. Life experience and general poetic disposition, as always, will dictate your fondness for this kind of thing. I won’t be keeping this in the collection.
I sometimes think about that poets-writing-for-other-poets thing, and I can understand why it has gone that way. Art has been institutionalized (commodified) and made to bear fruit, so structural analysis and codification are now, unfortunately, the only way such things can hold any measurable value (especially against the all mighty Hard Sciences, which, along with sports dictate the flow of money in our places of learning). So, people throw in things that will allow for academic study and interpretation because we’ve all got bills and job security to worry about.
For me though, a poem is as good as the feeling it creates. All other things should be cut away. That art can be so ruthlessly devalued in our schools and society is an endless source of rebellion (because I believe, perhaps foolishly, in the power of artistic expression to heal our souls and to unify rather than separate), so I tend to favor poets who have cast off their academic tethers.
The quality of writing is great, and it’s clear Bidart knows what he’s doing. But who cares if it doesn’t move you? Some passages did. Most did not. Life experience and general poetic disposition, as always, will dictate your fondness for this kind of thing. I won’t be keeping this in the collection.
I sometimes think about that poets-writing-for-other-poets thing, and I can understand why it has gone that way. Art has been institutionalized (commodified) and made to bear fruit, so structural analysis and codification are now, unfortunately, the only way such things can hold any measurable value (especially against the all mighty Hard Sciences, which, along with sports dictate the flow of money in our places of learning). So, people throw in things that will allow for academic study and interpretation because we’ve all got bills and job security to worry about.
For me though, a poem is as good as the feeling it creates. All other things should be cut away. That art can be so ruthlessly devalued in our schools and society is an endless source of rebellion (because I believe, perhaps foolishly, in the power of artistic expression to heal our souls and to unify rather than separate), so I tend to favor poets who have cast off their academic tethers.
Read
September 18, 2024This short poetry collection had a weak part one and very strong part two
The first part had so much of what I used to dread about poetry: it felt dull, cliched, meandering, self-consciously “literary;” there was nothing revealed, no passion, no mystery, it wasn’t even even playful; ultimately there was very little sense that the poet needed to get the words down at pain of death, which is what I am always looking for. The truth is I don’t read much poetry, so this could be a matter of underdeveloped taste. Maybe I am lacking context. Regardless I disliked the first part, but not even with a passion, because it incited no strong feelings in me at all. (The exception was the final poem, which I enjoyed.)
Then the second part was excellent and moving. It was like I was reading a completely different poet. Serious, deep, quiet, understated, etc. (I forgot to finish writing this review after I finished reading the collection, which was a few days ago at this point, so the specifics of why I liked it are gone)
I’ll have to reread this — maybe the contrast wasn’t so sharp, and really, I was just sleepy while reading the first part and alert while reading the second, that kind of thing happens all the time
The first part had so much of what I used to dread about poetry: it felt dull, cliched, meandering, self-consciously “literary;” there was nothing revealed, no passion, no mystery, it wasn’t even even playful; ultimately there was very little sense that the poet needed to get the words down at pain of death, which is what I am always looking for. The truth is I don’t read much poetry, so this could be a matter of underdeveloped taste. Maybe I am lacking context. Regardless I disliked the first part, but not even with a passion, because it incited no strong feelings in me at all. (The exception was the final poem, which I enjoyed.)
Then the second part was excellent and moving. It was like I was reading a completely different poet. Serious, deep, quiet, understated, etc. (I forgot to finish writing this review after I finished reading the collection, which was a few days ago at this point, so the specifics of why I liked it are gone)
I’ll have to reread this — maybe the contrast wasn’t so sharp, and really, I was just sleepy while reading the first part and alert while reading the second, that kind of thing happens all the time
July 8, 2022
I feel like I almost get it. But I don't get it.
Dialogue with Flesh
It was all a dialogue with flesh. Every
moment. Dialogue
with what you were not. Were
and were not—were not
flesh, and were. I blamed
my mother and grandmother and father
as if they were
souls, not flesh—
vowed never to have a child
(at seven or eight, solemnly vowed
never to make a creature like me) because no
creature must ever
conceivably feel about
me what I felt about him.
**
Vowed to cut myself away from
what clearly even then I knew were the common
patterns governing human life—
furious love, followed by
furious hatred.
Two people in a room. Then three.
**
With what you were, and were
not. Dialogue
every moment. With flesh, and not.
March 5, 2022
This collection covers topics like the degradation of nature at the hands of humans, race, the power of words to reflect, and familial tension.
I found that many of the poems in Part I had one or two good lines in the middle of what I’d consider a lot of jargon. The use of capitalization and the repetition of like words doesn’t do much in a number of these poems other than cause confusion.
However, the second part of this collection and the inclusion of “The Ghost” and “On My Seventy-Eighth” saved this collection from being sub par. Had it not been for those two poems, I would’ve rated this two stars.
I found that many of the poems in Part I had one or two good lines in the middle of what I’d consider a lot of jargon. The use of capitalization and the repetition of like words doesn’t do much in a number of these poems other than cause confusion.
However, the second part of this collection and the inclusion of “The Ghost” and “On My Seventy-Eighth” saved this collection from being sub par. Had it not been for those two poems, I would’ve rated this two stars.
February 28, 2023
Bidart is my favorite poet who has ever lived. His previous books are collected in one giant volume called Half-Life, and it is filled to bursting with quiet, powerful reflections on the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and how they make us who we are.
This book, his eleventh, is filled with poems that graft the whole trajectory of his life (at the time of publication he was 81), and looks back on childhood angers and traumas, adolescent love, and the loss of his grandmother and his parents from the viewpoint of a person who is conscious of his own mortality.
The work is stunning and there are so many lines that knocked the wind out of me. Absolutely recommended!
This book, his eleventh, is filled with poems that graft the whole trajectory of his life (at the time of publication he was 81), and looks back on childhood angers and traumas, adolescent love, and the loss of his grandmother and his parents from the viewpoint of a person who is conscious of his own mortality.
The work is stunning and there are so many lines that knocked the wind out of me. Absolutely recommended!
October 11, 2021
I’ve been ruminating on how much I’ve disliked the past five years of writing for trying to be too political and aging poorly. Thankfully, Bidart’s latest collection consciously weighs the issues of the past few years with thoughtful poetry that tackles challenging subject matter without succumbing to it. For Bidart enthusiasts, the Fifth Hour of the Night is included, and gains context from the rest of the collection. Brilliant as always!
March 12, 2022
poems written to the backdrop of death, and consequently life. bidart plays with language in a way i’ve never seen - spinning syntax, using clever capitalization, inserting constant breaks between and within lines - and it fits the central themes of the poems almost too well. the pauses and reflections which make you think, in the middle of the poem, about how you too are part of that poem and not at all part of it. 4.5
June 26, 2021
Thank you, NetGalley for a chance to read and review this ARC!
It took me a while to get into this, but you really start to enjoy Frank Bidart when you read it aloud or imagine it being performed.
It took me a while to get into this, but you really start to enjoy Frank Bidart when you read it aloud or imagine it being performed.
February 14, 2022
Unfortunately this collection of poetry wasn't for me. I did enjoy The Moral Arc of the Universe Bends Toward Justice.
September 21, 2022
One of twelve finalists for the Massachusetts Center for the Book’s 2022 Poetry Prize. No spoilers until the prize is announced in October 2022!
April 3, 2023
Bidart is a poet's poet.
May 3, 2023
Almost impossible to read with its weight in wisdom.
September 19, 2023
3.5 stars | liked the first half more than the second. “at the shore” is my favorite - ❤️ poems about nature as devastating and devastated
August 17, 2024
Poetry
August 31, 2024
“They love each other more than anything but the well is poisoned” obsessed
December 18, 2023
Rating: 4/5
Bitter, reflective and meticulously crafted, “Against Silence” is a plunge into a twilight full of the dead, the past, and the rage at the fading light.
Bitter, reflective and meticulously crafted, “Against Silence” is a plunge into a twilight full of the dead, the past, and the rage at the fading light.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 33 reviews