Charles Martin (3) (1942–)
Autor/a de Catullus (Hermes Books)
Per altres autors anomenats Charles Martin, vegeu la pàgina de desambiguació.
Sobre l'autor
Charles Martin is the author of four books of poems, including Steal The Bacon and What The Darkness Proposes, both nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His translation of the poems of Catullus has been widely praised and his poems have appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker, The Hudson Review, Boulevard, mostra'n més The Threepenny Review, and in many other magazines and anthologies. He is the recipient of a Bess Hokin Award from Poetry, a 2001 Pushcart Prize, and fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a professor at Queensborough Community College (CUNY) and lives in New York City with his wife mostra'n menys
Sèrie
Obres de Charles Martin
Obres associades
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (1995) — Col·laborador, algunes edicions — 917 exemplars
War No More: Three Centuries of American Antiwar and Peace Writing (2016) — Col·laborador — 86 exemplars
Etiquetat
Coneixement comú
Membres
Ressenyes
Premis
Potser també t'agrada
Autors associats
Estadístiques
- Obres
- 7
- També de
- 6
- Membres
- 85
- Popularitat
- #214,931
- Valoració
- 4.1
- Ressenyes
- 1
- ISBN
- 284
- Llengües
- 16
My first impression was how varied the poems are-some are short, almost just an observation rather than a poem. Others have a limerick quality, while a few extend to pages of rhymed couplets. For some reason, I was predisposed to think of this as “serious” poetry, but in fact, I giggled uncontrollably at a few of them (“The Spaniard”, for one).
His topics also vary, and yet the whole remains cohesive. One example is “Brooklyn in the Seventies”, where at first it appears he’s waxing nostalgic about thriving real estate and restoring brownstones, and then it pivots to discuss the variations in marriage-the times of tearing down and renewal. The parallels are uncanny and truly lead you to wonder:
Yes, selves were in a frenzy of commotion,
And those beyond their expiration dates
Were being tossed despite years of devotion
So whether by one’s doing or by fate’s
One found oneself in an unlikely place…
My favorite is “Ovid to His Book”, in which the ancient poet imagines sending to one of his books Rome to somehow regain his entry to the city from which he’s exiled. In the poem he counsels the tangible book as to proper decorum and strategy:
Go on your way now, book, and speak for me
In places that I love, but cannot be,
Saluting those whom I have come to meet
On metrical, if on no other, feet…
When biting words offend you, just recall
The best defense is often none at all,
And if you’d really have my exile end,
Go find us both an influential friend…
“After 9/11” is likely to be the most moving of the poetry in the book, as Martin relays the emotions and actions of New Yorkers at the moment of the tragedy and in the aftermath, searching for loved ones. Yet he goes in a different direction, noting that at one time, Manhattan was the site of a battle of George Washington, and that buried bones are not uncommon. Rather, they form the foundation of the island historically and culturally, and create “a sublime alignment of the present with the past.”
Against the need to hold them all in thought,
Time is what places them beyond recall,
Against the need of the falling to be caught,
Against the woman who’s begun to fall,
Against the woman who is watching from below,
Time is the photo peeling from the wall.
In total, Martin covers a dramatic amount of subjects: George W. Bush, art, the “unreal” pain of a poet, endangered animals, and suicide. In doing so, he makes thematic comparisons that are never cliché or trite. Only one title, “Poem for the Millennium,” left me lost-I didn’t know what to make of the style and phrasing that was evoking the events of the year 2000.… (més)