Crossing the Equator - by Nicholas Christopher (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Nicholas Christopher has been praised as one of America's most important poets by such literary talents as John Ashbery, Charles Simic, James Merrill, and Anthony Hecht. Crossing the Equator collects Christopher's best work from the past three decades and includes a section of new poems that are among his finest.

Cold missiles and a rain

of embers accompany the men

who slide like shadows into the city

faces mud-smeared

stones for teeth no eyes

who slit the throats of everyone

they encounter until breaking down

my door they drag me into the darkness

that floods the corridor

and lock me in an icy chamber

--from "THE LAST HOURS OF LAÓDIKÊ, SISTER OF HEKTOR"

From the Back Cover

"A major poet of his generation... Mr. Christopher's poetry is not merely extraordinarily good, but seems to me altogether in a class by itself." -- Anthony Hecht
Since his poetry began appearing in the New Yorker when he was in his early twenties, Nicholas Christopher has been praised as one of America's most important poets. Crossing the Equator combines Christopher's best work from the past three decades with a section of new poems. The transformative voice of Crossing the Equatordisplays Christopher's dazzling power and luminosity.
Praise for CROSSING THE EQUATOR
"One of our most inventive writers To read [Christopher s] richly honed and sensuous work, which has so much tensile strength, is to visit other worlds and then return to our own, disturbed by time, but also refreshed and reawakened." --Edward Hirsch, The Washington Post Book World
"[A] dreamlike and highly visual collection, where punctuation is often scarce and the plausible . . . can quickly turn surreal." -- The New Yorker
NICHOLAS CHRISTOPHER is the author of seven volumes of poetry, five novels, and a cultural history of film noir.A regular contributor to the New Yorker, Esquire, the Nation, the Paris Review, and other notable magazines, he is aprofessor in the School of the Arts at Columbia University andlives in New York City. "

Review Quotes

"Cold missiles and a rain
of embers accompany the men
who slide like shadows into the city
faces mud-smeared
stones for teeth no eyes

who slit the throats of everyone
they encounter until breaking down
my door they drag me into the darkness
that floods the corridor
and lock me in an icy chamber"

--from "The Last Hours of Laodike, Sister of Hektor"
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