Ranking the Wishes - (Penguin Poets) by Carl Dennis (Paperback)

About the Book

In his seventh book, poet Carl Dennis explores the ways in which our wishes define who we are. Showing how wishes are essential to giving shape and direction to the moment, these poems address the broad spectrum of wishing with moving clarity through a rich variety of genres elegy, advice, meditation, warning, consolation, and prophecy.

Book Synopsis

In his seventh book, Carl Dennis explores the ways in which our wishes - those in our power to fulfill at any moment and those that have no chance of ever being realized - define who we are. While some of the poems view wishing as a failure to do justice to the world we have, others regard it as a recognition that no present, however rich, can satisfy the imagination, and suggest that one of the functions of poetry is to keep significant wishes alive. In showing with moving clarity how wishes are essential to giving shape and direction to the moment, these poems make use of a rich variety of genres: elegy, advice, meditation, warning, consolation, and prophecy.

About the Author

Carl Dennis is the author of nine books of poetry, including Practical Gods, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, in 2000 he was awarded the Ruth Lilly Prize from Poetry Magazine and the Modern Poetry Association for his contribution to American poetry. He teaches in the English Department at the State University of New York at Buffalo, and is a sometime member of the faculty of the MFA program in creative writing at Warren Wilson College.