Shorter Poems - (National Poetry Series Books (Paperback)) by Gerald Burns (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Gerald Burns is a leading practitioner of long-lined, thickly textured verse. "These / long lines are long life to us, go back to Kenneth Irby's 'A Set' I saw first in / a flyer from Lawrence, KS where Burroughs chats with Cage whose spitbubbles / may remind us with Zukofsky the heart of the bluebonnet's black. Anyone can learn from anything, " he writes, and as these lines from "For J. R. Here" indicate, Burns has learned much: his long dragnet lines display a lifetime of wide reading and close observation from an astonishing range of subjects.

Review Quotes

"His work requires a degree of attention that the great mass of contemporary poetry does not; it is complex, wholly unsentimental, and intellectually rich in the breadth of materials it incorporates and utilizes." --?Barry Silesky, "Southwest Review"

A firm, startling voice speaksobsessively, obscurely, intelligently. Burns never states; he hints, winks, alludes, conspires. If you can hear the music, you cannot help but dance.... We read Gerald Burns by taking the plunge, by accepting his voice, his agenda, and his difficulty. We emerge battered and revised.--Donald Hall

These extraordinary poems are testament to their author's passionate commitment to all that has entered his mind and heart. He is our great master of detail, of why it is and how it is that the things of our lives constitute a primary index of place. I love the pleasure he so invites, the wit of his insistent response.--Robert Creeley