Böcker av Elton Glaser

Intensely Emotional and Bitingly Witty Poems about Grief, Family, and Joy

The poems in distinguished poet Elton Glaseras sixth collection journey through the seasons, from spring to spring, a pilgrimage down to the South, over the Midwest of snow and roses, and across the Romance countries of Europe. If the poet often finds himself a[h]alfway between grief and longing,a that may be his natural condition, rooted in this world against the pull of the next, his faith in the apurple evidence of plums, the testimony of wild persimmona weathering the stormy preachers and the droughts of middle age. Within that tension, the range of tones is unlimited, sometimes in the same poem, moving from the serious to the sublime, from anguish to awe. Holding everything together is Glaseras unmistakable voice, a warm idiom made pungent by wintry wit: amy tongue of odd American, my mongrel sublime.a

The hard centre of The Law of Falling Bodies bears down on the twin enmities of pain and loss. But the book ranges over a broad field, with poems covering everything from the inundations of summer rain (""It's like living in the spit valve of a big trombone"") to a lovesick drunk listening to Patsy Cline (""My drink's on the rocks, and I am, too."").

In Translations from the Flesh, Elton Glaser's poems are driven by the powerful engines of love and desire, giving voice to those deep pressures that most move us, body and soul: "I put my native tongue / To work, open to / The dark instincts of ecstasy."

This is a book of poems with a homing instinct: Elton Glaser travels a restless circuit between his native Louisiana and his adopted home of Ohio. These reflections are extracted from the origins and ends of the poet's life.