Part ancient Greek chorus, part Southern Baptist revival, Songs for Two Voices is an explosive showcase for Bruce Smith's jazz-like variations on sonnets and couplets, offering twenty-five duets: poems of call and response, song and countersong. In poems that groove and break, shimmy and dance, Smith filters his Miles Davis-like riffs through a post-World War II American sensibility to deliver verse without platitudes. As Smith's speakers wander through the detritus of American materialism-encountering jazz, football, ...
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Part ancient Greek chorus, part Southern Baptist revival, Songs for Two Voices is an explosive showcase for Bruce Smith's jazz-like variations on sonnets and couplets, offering twenty-five duets: poems of call and response, song and countersong. In poems that groove and break, shimmy and dance, Smith filters his Miles Davis-like riffs through a post-World War II American sensibility to deliver verse without platitudes. As Smith's speakers wander through the detritus of American materialism-encountering jazz, football, drag, class war, Reaganomics, and Vietnam-the poems dramatize the contradictions and peculiarities of growing up male in Cold War America, both sensing promise and suffering disillusion. Each poem here speaks in two voices: one that attacks and one that cowers, one voice that leads while the other follows. But Smith's subjects are unencumbered by form, and their voices blossom in duet: the idealized lover is also a betrayer, the man is also a girl. These binaries of statement and contradiction give birth to a third voice in the unrealized possibilities of the two. A mesmerizing follow-up to 2000's The Other Lover , Smith's Songs for Two Voices is carnal yet fiercely intellectual, laid out with the self-confidence of a poet who can invoke Mozart and Coltrane, Anna Akhmatova and John Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt and Augustine in the same incendiary breath.
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Add this copy of Songs for Two Voices (Phoenix Poets) to cart. $11.84, very good condition, Sold by Solr Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Skokie, IL, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by University of Chicago Press.
Add this copy of Songs for Two Voices to cart. $43.51, like new condition, Sold by GreatBookPrices rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by University of Chicago Press.
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Fine. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 72 p. Phoenix Poets. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of Songs for Two Voices (Phoenix Poets) to cart. $43.52, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by University of Chicago Press.
Add this copy of Songs for Two Voices to cart. $75.68, new condition, Sold by GreatBookPrices rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Columbia, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by University of Chicago Press.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
New. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 72 p. Phoenix Poets. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
Add this copy of Songs for Two Voices (Phoenix Poets) to cart. $75.69, new condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by University of Chicago Press.
