The Laughter of the Sphinx

The Laughter of the Sphinx
By:

Synopsis

A powerful, indelible new collection by Michael Palmer--"one of America's most important poets" (The Harvard Review)

Michael Palmer's new book--a collection in two parts, "The Laughter of the Sphinx" and "Still (a cantata--or nada--for Sister Satan)"--contains 52 poems.

The title poem begins "The laughter of the Sphinx / caused my eyes to bleed" and haunts us with the ruin we are making of our world, even as Palmer revels in its incredible beauty. Such central tensions in The Laughter of the Sphinx--between beauty and loss, love and death, motion and rest, knowledge and ignorance--glow in Palmer's lyrical play of light and entirely hypnotize the reader. The stakes, as always with Palmer, are very high, essentially life and death: "Please favor us with a reply / regarding our one-time offer / which will soon expire."

Copyright:
2016 Michael Palmer

Book Details

Book Quality:
ISBN-13:
9780811225557
Publisher:
New Directions
Date of Addition:
Language:
English
Categories:
Literature and Fiction, Outdoors and Nature, Poetry,
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.