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A Country of Strangers: New and Selected Poems
In an illuminating collection of selected poems over thirty-five years, one of our most essential American poets casts a clear eye on our politics, our places, and our heart's hidden stories.
D. Nurkse's immigrant parents met on a boat out of Europe in 1940; he was a child of the generation whose anxieties were forged in the shadow of Hiroshima and the aftermath of WWII. His poems extend that child's dignified ignorance into an open encounter with the cataclysms of the latter twentieth century and with family structures.
Whispers of the old country of Estonia provide the backdrop for the boy's baseballs, thrown in the fading twilight of the 1950s ("Secretly, I was proudest of my skill / at standing alone in the darkness"). The young man explores sexual passion and the arrival of a child in a young marriage ("We showed her daylight in our cupped hands"), while the mature poet writes of loneliness and community in our cities ("but on the streets / there was no one"), and the urgent need for us to keep expressing our will as citizens.
Throughout this matchless career, over eleven books, Nurkse has crafted visceral lines that celebrate the fragility of what simply exists--birdsong, moonrise, illness, water towers--and the complexity of human perception, our stumble forward through it toward understanding.
D. Nurkse's immigrant parents met on a boat out of Europe in 1940; he was a child of the generation whose anxieties were forged in the shadow of Hiroshima and the aftermath of WWII. His poems extend that child's dignified ignorance into an open encounter with the cataclysms of the latter twentieth century and with family structures.
Whispers of the old country of Estonia provide the backdrop for the boy's baseballs, thrown in the fading twilight of the 1950s ("Secretly, I was proudest of my skill / at standing alone in the darkness"). The young man explores sexual passion and the arrival of a child in a young marriage ("We showed her daylight in our cupped hands"), while the mature poet writes of loneliness and community in our cities ("but on the streets / there was no one"), and the urgent need for us to keep expressing our will as citizens.
Throughout this matchless career, over eleven books, Nurkse has crafted visceral lines that celebrate the fragility of what simply exists--birdsong, moonrise, illness, water towers--and the complexity of human perception, our stumble forward through it toward understanding.
- GenresPoetry
304 pages, Hardcover
Published April 19, 2022
3 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
D. Nurkse
30 books11 followersD. (Dennis) Nurkse is the author of eight books of poetry. He has received the Whiting Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, two grants from the New York State Foundation for the Arts, and other awards. He has also written widely on human rights.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 19, 2024
quite the mixed bag here in terms of topicality, style… and quality, in my opinion. “love in the last days” was a particularly well composed section, particularly if you are already versed in the legend of tristan and iseult… that much i can recommend undoubtedly
May 1, 2024
April 30 - May 3, 2022 - ebook - DNF @ 26%
April 30, 2024 - audiobook
April 30, 2024 - audiobook
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews