A superb new collection from a great American poet . . . still at work on his almost-song of himself " "("The New York Times Book Review"). In both lively prose poems and more formal verse, Philip Levine brings us news from everywhere: from Detroit, where exhausted workers try to find a decent breakfast after the late shift, and Henry Ford, supremely bored in his mansion, clocks in at one of his plants . . . from Spain, where a woman sings a song that rises at dawn, like the dust of ages, through an open window . . . from ...
Read More
A superb new collection from a great American poet . . . still at work on his almost-song of himself " "("The New York Times Book Review"). In both lively prose poems and more formal verse, Philip Levine brings us news from everywhere: from Detroit, where exhausted workers try to find a decent breakfast after the late shift, and Henry Ford, supremely bored in his mansion, clocks in at one of his plants . . . from Spain, where a woman sings a song that rises at dawn, like the dust of ages, through an open window . . . from Andorra, where an old Communist can now supply you with anything you want a French radio, a Cadillac, or, if you have a week, an American film star. The world of his poetry is one of questionable magic: a typist lives for her only son who will die in a war to come; three boys fish in a river while a fine industrial residue falls on their shoulders. This is a haunted world in which exotic animals travel first class, an immigrant worker in Detroit yearns for the silence of his Siberian exile, and the Western mountains maintain that huge silence we think of as divine. A rich, deeply felt collection from one of our master poets."
Read Less
Add this copy of News of the World: Poems to cart. $1.91, very good condition, Sold by More Than Words rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Waltham, MA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf Publishing Group.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very Good. . All orders guaranteed and ship within 24 hours. Your purchase supports More Than Words, a nonprofit job training program for youth, empowering youth to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business.
Add this copy of News of the World to cart. $2.46, like new condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Knopf Publishing Group.
Add this copy of News of the World to cart. $2.46, like new condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Knopf Publishing Group.
Add this copy of News of the World to cart. $2.46, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Knopf Publishing Group.
Add this copy of News of the World to cart. $2.46, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Knopf Publishing Group.
Add this copy of News of the World to cart. $3.17, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf Publishing Group.
Add this copy of News of the World to cart. $3.17, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf Publishing Group.
Add this copy of News of the World to cart. $3.17, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf Publishing Group.
Add this copy of News of the World: Poems to cart. $4.49, good condition, Sold by BooksRun rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Philadelphia, PA, UNITED STATES, published 2009 by Knopf.
Add this copy of News of the World-Poems to cart. $4.74, good condition, Sold by Wonder Book - Member ABAA/ILAB rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Frederick, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2011 by Knopf Publishing Group.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Good. Good condition. A copy that has been read but remains intact. May contain markings such as bookplates, stamps, limited notes and highlighting, or a few light stains.
I remember the American poet Philip Levine (1928 -- 2015) from reading and reviewing three of his books in 2001: "The Mercy", "The Simple Truth", and "What Work Is". Levine received the 1991 National Book Award for "What Work Is" and the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for "The Simple Truth". From 2011-- 2012, Levine served as Poet Laureate of the United States.
It has been a long time, but I revisited Levine through his 2009 book "News of the World" which was the last collection of poetry published during Levine's life. In its themes and writing, the collection reminded me of the works of Levine I read years earlier. The writing tends to be simple and understated. Levine tends to write in long unrhymed lines. The poems are often spoken by a narrator and involve a reflection on a past experience. In this volume in particular, the poems are sad and elegiac in tone.
Levine is best-known for his poems of working class Detroit in the years surrounding WW II. Many of the poems in this final collection involve Detroit as Levine reflects on years gone by. The poems capture the decay of the city in recent years as Levine also remembers the deadening work on the assembly lines together with his companions and his family. The poems with sad memories of Detroit and portrayals of what Levine saw as its contemporary state include "Arrival and Departure", "Yakov", and "Homecoming". The poem "Library Days" shows an adolescent reading in the Detroit library and dreaming before realizing that he must hit the streets to do his mundane job. The final poem in the collection "Magic" reflects on loss and meeting as Levine remembers an old Detroit friend who loved the saxophonist Lester Young and "the high tenor cry /behind Billie Holiday that took us closer to paradise/than we'd ever been." The poems set in Detroit were those I most enjoyed in this final book. I was reminded of crime novelist Elmore Leonard who lived in Detroit for most of his life and who made the gritty city the setting of many of his best books, including "City Primeval".
As befitting the title "News of the World" many of the poems in this collection are set in a variety of places and times, including Spain, California, New York City, Australia, and elsewhere. With the changes in settings and events, the poems generally feature a speaker with the same melancholy, reflective tone as the Detroit-based poems. An unusual feature of this collection is the group of prose-poems included in the third of the book's four parts which include the title poem, set in Andorra. These prose-poems add variety and a welcome change of pacing to the collection. In a prose-poem called "Islands" Levine offers a Whitmanesque vision of Manhattan and its liveliness. The poem is more full of hope than most of the other works in the volume as Levine reflects:
"One lives inside an immense, endless opera punctuated by the high notes of sirens & the basso profondo of trucks & jackhammers & ferries & tugboats. And when you merge your own small & sincere voice with the singing you come to realize this music is merely the background to a great American epic."
Although this collection lacked some of the freshness I remembered from my earlier reading of Levine, I was grateful for the opportunity to meet him again, as we both have aged. I enjoyed hearing Levine's elegiac voice reflect on industrial-age Detroit and I also enjoyed his understated broad vision of "a great American epic".