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Loading... Curses and Wishes: Poems (Walt Whitman Award)by Carl Adamshick
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Shows promise, inconsistent, but some very fine passages ( ) Curses and Wishes by Carl Adamshick uses an economy of words to address the harrowing moments of life and the happier moments. His images are unique and playful, but his subjects are sometimes dark and eerie, like the barren tree with its barely there spinal column of vertebrae on the cover. From “Even Though” (page 1-3), “I felt the deep bruise of a sentence/and wanted to eat/at the banquet of silence.” Which are the curses and which are the wishes is left up to the reader, but some poems are clearly laments for those dying in the Holocaust (like the poem “The book of Nelly Sachs“) or lost by other means. Adamshick clings to the moment, a snatch of time and draws out the undercurrent of meaning, creating a story from the unknown. Unlike, Whitman, who used nature in his poems to extrapolate wider philosophical realities of transcendentalism, Adamshick’s poems combine industrial elements from street lights to chessboard pieces and cameras to evoke emotion and recognition in the reader, creating an Aha moment. “The corner utility pole/holds a cone of light/to its mouth// and is screaming/at the pavement.// We are almost here/” (page 38 from “Almost”) However, like Whitman, there is a sense of moving beyond, gaining insight into humanity and stretching ourselves further. Read the full review: http://savvyverseandwit.com/2011/07/curses-and-wishes-by-carl-adamshick.html no reviews | add a review
The unusual voice encountered in Curses and Wishes carries a quiet, slightly elevatedconversational tone, which flows from intimate secrets to wider social concerns. The poet has faith in economy and trusts in images to transfer knowledge that speech cannot. In Curses and Wishes the short, simple lines add up to a thoughtful book possessed with lyrical melancholy, a harmony of sadness and joy that sings: "May happiness be a wheel, a lit throne, spinning / in the vast pinprick of darkness." By the close of this ambitious work the poet has inspired readers to see the multifaceted effects of our human connections. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)811.6Literature English (North America) American poetry 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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