Hometown and Other Poems - by Lyman Andrews (Hardcover)

About the Book

Published here for the first time, alongside the rest of his poetry, including some uncollected pieces, this poem will restore Lyman Andrews's place among the great American poets of the twentieth century.

Book Synopsis

Divided into fifty-seven sections, 'Hometown' is an extraordinary work in the long tradition of the Great American Poem. The author's own compositions, interspersed with quotations from other famous writers and excerpts from historical documents and articles, including an old restaurant menu, create a living tapestry of the city of Denver from its frontier days to its foundation and beyond, woven together by the poet's unifying gaze and psychedelic imagination.

Thirty years in the making, 'Hometown' was left unpublished at the death of its author, who regarded it as his most important work. Published here for the first time, alongside the rest of his poetry, including some uncollected pieces, this poem will restore Andrews's place among the great American poets of the twentieth century.

Contains an introduction by Prof. John Burt, Brandeis University and an afterword by Michael Baird.

Calder Publications was founded by John Calder in 1949, and became known for the edgy and avant-garde writers it was proud of having in its list. Calder Publications, an imprint of Alma Books, offers a list of books which will challenge and stimulate the serious readers.

Review Quotes

"These poems strike me as significant of the poet's ambition to make images out of concrete things and take the world as an endless dictionary of symbols. [...] Andrews's poetry has an analytical power which detaches each line, each word, within and from a space of silence, where they take their full relief without ceasing to be consonant with the whole." --Pierre Emmanuel

About the Author

Lyman Andrews (1938-2009) was an American poet, critic and lecturer who spent most of his life in Britain, where he taught at the University of Leicester and worked as poetry editor of the Sunday Times.