Resurrection Pie - by John Wall Barger (Paperback)

About the Book

"A resurrection pie is defined as any dish made from yesterday's leftovers: a meal that, in essence, rises from the dead. In this spirit, John Wall Barger's new collection of poetry calls forth the past and its dead, describing a bardo-like psychic terrain in a language of fable and trauma. The poems move fast and strange: a man arrives at his ex-lover's island of secrets; a mourner begins coughing up red flower petals; a man walks backward across Philadelphia, as bodies begin rising out of the ground; a boy watches his dead sister's flea circus through a magnifying glass. In language by turns vivid and destabilizing, Barger writes the odd, the marvelous, the wounded, with unguarded clarity and a gift for metaphor. Resurrection Pie is a work of serious play - absurd, intimate, melancholic - dispatches from inside the fever dream"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

A resurrection pie is defined as any dish made from yesterday's leftovers--a meal that, in essence, rises from the dead. In this spirit, John Wall Barger's new collection of poetry calls forth the past and its dead, describing a bardo-like psychic terrain in a language of fable and trauma. The poems move fast and strange: a man arrives at his ex-lover's island of secrets; a mourner coughs up red flower petals; a man walks backward across Philadelphia as bodies rise out of the ground; a boy watches his dead sister's flea circus through a magnifying glass.

In language by turns vivid and destabilizing, Barger writes the odd, the marvelous, and the wounded with unguarded clarity. Resurrection Pie is a work of serious play: absurd, intimate, melancholic. Dispatches from inside the fever dream.

Review Quotes

"Resurrection Pie is deliciously full of event and detail. Barger, a poet of great affability, is also wonderfully unwilling to smooth over trouble or falsify reality."--Daisy Fried

"Barger has an absurdist's heart, and it's a vast heart, full of grief, heartache, and enchantment. In these pages, you might find yourself in a duel with Elvis, or chatting with a ghost named Marcus Aurelius. There might be secrets buried in the yard, but Barger's expansive imagination will illuminate each of those secrets, and you will be charmed and changed."--Matthew Olzmann

"Barger's new collection shows the celebrated poet shimmying in the peaks of the contemporary lyric. The poems in Resurrection Pie gather and grieve and party hard with big-hearted tenderness and a propulsively twisting imagination."--Zach Savich

"The poems in John Wall Barger's Resurrection Pie are triumphal examples of the mystery that makes the lyric what it is. These are poems that are both easily apprehended and fathomless."--Shane McCrae

About the Author

John Wall Barger is the author of six previous collections of poems and one collection of essays. He lives in Vermont and lectures in the Writing Program at Dartmouth College.