From the Book of Giants

by Joshua Weiner

Song                           for Thom Gunn There is no east or west in the wood you fear and seek, stumbling past a gate of moss and what you would not take. And what you thought you had (the Here that is no rest) you make from it an aid to form no east, no west. No east.  No west.  No need for given map or bell, vehicle, screen, or speed. Forget the house, forget the hill. Taking its title from a set of writings found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, From the Book of Giants retunes the signal broadcast from these ancient fragments, transmitting a new sound in the shape of a Roman drain cover, in imitations of Dante and Martial, in the voice of a cricket and the hard-boiled American photographer Weegee, in elegies both public and personal, and in poems that range from the social speech of letters to the gnomic language of riddles. Out of poetry’s “complex of complaint and praise,” Joshua Weiner discovers, in one poem, his own complicity in Empire during his son’s baseball game at the White House. In another, an embroidered parrot sings a hermetic nursery rhyme to an infant after 9/11.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[B.L. Aldrich]

Ehhh. Not bad, but not something I'll revisit. I mean, the man has won some prestigious awards for his poetry, but it's not to my taste. I prefer more precision and stronger imagery than this collection evinced.

[Kristin]

I felt more connected to this book than I did to "In the World's Room." This book seemed more mature, and the language never got in the way of itself. A nice little collection.

[James Tierney]

'Found Letter' led me to buy this collection and it towers over everything else here.