DRIVING THE BODY BACK (Knopf Poetry) - Hardcover
Poems deal with mortality, grief, families, country life, friendship, the past, nature, and memories
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Mary Swander has written and edited numerous books, including Out of This World, Succession, and Heaven-and-Earth House; her many honors include a Whiting Award and the Carl Sandburg Literary Award. A regular commentator on Iowa Public Radio, Swander teaches at Iowa State University.
Review:
"A marvelous collection of folk humor, wild ways and down-home storytelling. Driving the Body Back is a sometimes harsh but always deeply compassionate narrative, and so well constructed that the reader occasionally forgets, as one does with Arabian Nights, who is doing the telling and why. And one doesn't care. It is enough to let Miss Swander's characters enthrall and teach with the stories of their lives." -- Louise Erdrich in the New York Times Book Review
"A narrative tour de force. . . . Swander straightforwardly acknowledges grievous loss while afrming, with compassion and humor, the value of the journey itself. Her vision is remarkable in seeing aspects of the sacramental in everyday life: in the courage, perseverance, and folly of her characters, in landscape and nature, and in the actual celebratory process of memory." -- Antioch Review
"From the hard task of wresting sustenance from the soil to the hard fact of thawing the ground for burial, Swander's concerns affect us all. If you complain that poets write only for themselves and other poets, this may well be the book for you." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Mary Swander's extraordinary album of family portraits sketches for us the vitality and eccentricities of life and death in rural America. . . . Though the dead she recalls and conjures arise from her own life, Mary Swander speaks for a universal courage and tenderness. She is truly an American original." -- David St. John
"Swander creates a vivid family portrait, one of the best evocations of rural life that I know of, but something far from ordinary or merely domestic. Through the ambitious scope of this sequence, Swander has created a homegrown Decameron empowering anecdote with the resonance of myth." -- David Wojahn
"When Mary Swander turns her people loose, they become heroes and heroines of all the small battles that every human being ghts. . . . Driving the Body Back gives a generous picture of a fascinating family, a family which is everyone's family." -- Des Moines Register
Doc
Ed
George
Grandma
Jim
Julia
Maud
Nell
Phil
-- Table of Poems from Poem FinderŪ
"A narrative tour de force. . . . Swander straightforwardly acknowledges grievous loss while afrming, with compassion and humor, the value of the journey itself. Her vision is remarkable in seeing aspects of the sacramental in everyday life: in the courage, perseverance, and folly of her characters, in landscape and nature, and in the actual celebratory process of memory." -- Antioch Review
"From the hard task of wresting sustenance from the soil to the hard fact of thawing the ground for burial, Swander's concerns affect us all. If you complain that poets write only for themselves and other poets, this may well be the book for you." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Mary Swander's extraordinary album of family portraits sketches for us the vitality and eccentricities of life and death in rural America. . . . Though the dead she recalls and conjures arise from her own life, Mary Swander speaks for a universal courage and tenderness. She is truly an American original." -- David St. John
"Swander creates a vivid family portrait, one of the best evocations of rural life that I know of, but something far from ordinary or merely domestic. Through the ambitious scope of this sequence, Swander has created a homegrown Decameron empowering anecdote with the resonance of myth." -- David Wojahn
"When Mary Swander turns her people loose, they become heroes and heroines of all the small battles that every human being ghts. . . . Driving the Body Back gives a generous picture of a fascinating family, a family which is everyone's family." -- Des Moines Register
Doc
Ed
George
Grandma
Jim
Julia
Maud
Nell
Phil
-- Table of Poems from Poem FinderŪ
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherKnopf
- Publication date1986
- ISBN 10 0394550080
- ISBN 13 9780394550084
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages81
- Rating
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DRIVING THE BODY BACK (Knopf Poetry)
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Acceptable. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear . It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear . It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket. Seller Inventory # mon0000444990
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Driving the Body Back
Published by
Alfred A. Knopf Inc.
(1986)
ISBN 10: 0394550080
ISBN 13: 9780394550084
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Hardcover
First Edition
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Quantity: 1
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. Inscribed by author to poet Paul [Zimmer] on title page, dated 2/17/87. Hint of yellowing to edges of DJ flaps and back panel. DJ now in protective mylar. Inscribed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # 180706
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Driving the Body Back (Signed First Edition)
Published by
Alfred A. Knopf, New York
(1986)
ISBN 10: 0394550080
ISBN 13: 9780394550084
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Hardcover
First Edition
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Quantity: 1
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Book Description First edition. Hardcover. First printing. 81 pages. Swander's fourth collection of poetry. An about near fine copy with a tiny spot to the foredge and some darkening to the front free endpaper in an about near fine dust jacket with a crease to the front flap and some minor darkening to the edges. Signed by Swander on the half title page. Seller Inventory # 115367
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Driving the Body Back
Published by
Alfred a Knopf Inc, Westminister, Maryland, U.S.A.
(1986)
ISBN 10: 0394550080
ISBN 13: 9780394550084
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Hardcover
First Edition
Quantity: 1
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Book Description Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First Edition/First Printing. This is Mary Swander's first book since her greatly praised "Successions". It is a narrative poem about an American Midwestern family - and is already being welcomed and acclaimed. Mary Swander was born in Carroll, Iowa, in 1950, and educated at Georgetown University and the University of Iowa. She has been the recipient of a number of prizes and awards. Seller Inventory # 5335
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DRIVING THE BODY BACK: Poems (Signed First Edition)
Published by
Knopf, New York
(1986)
ISBN 10: 0394550080
ISBN 13: 9780394550084
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Hardcover
First Edition
Signed
Quantity: 1
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Book Description Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. 1st Edition. New York, Knopf, 1986. First edition. First printing. Hardbound. Fine in a near fine jacket. A tight clean copy. Jacket is faded on spine. Publisher's price intact on front jacket flap ($14.95). SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page (name only). Comes with archival-quality mylar jacket protector. Smoke-free. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # Rear-Poetry-Signed-Swander
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