Böcker av James Longenbach

Standing on the shore, preparing to journey into the unknown, James Longenbach wrote these final poems with astonishing courage and clarity. Seafarer opens with a gorgeous sequence in which the poet looks down on his life from above, as if he's already left it behind. With prophetic perception, Longenbach reflects on the encroaching tide of mortality through myth and memory. This volume unites Seafarer with Forever (2021) and the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Earthling (2017); the three works have a powerful symmetry in their recognition of the ordinary, extraordinary, and precarious experiences of love and loss.

In lucid, elegant poems, Forever contemplates love against the pressing question of mortality after a diagnosis of cancer.

A comprehensive guide to writing or reading poetry, by "one of our most lucid and important critics" (American Academy of Arts and Letters).

Earthling confronts our deepest fears in clear and haunting language, from "a poet of extraordinary gifts" (American Academy of Arts and Letters).

"The world in these poems, rendered from memory on a mythic tide, is at once palpable and numinous." -On the Seawall