I, Benjamin: A Quasi-Autobiographical Novella - Softcover

Theodore Enslin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0929701909 ISBN 13: 9780929701905

Publisher: McPherson, 2010

Synopsis

A lonely man possessing special powers crosses into an unknown country. There he meets three mysterious figures: an alluring diva, a shape-shifting siren, and an oddly omniscient hunter. Gradually, the four-part variations of I, Benjamin assume the disquieting dimensions of a visionary passageway to that unknowable thing called a beautiful life.... Theodore Enslin's poetic career spans 51 years since the publication of his first book, The Work Proposed in 1958; now, with his self-proclaimed swan song, he presents a “quasi-autobiographical” fable of an artist's life.

About this title

About the Author:

Theodore Vernon Enslin (born March 25, 1925) is the last living American poet of the first circle associated with Cid Corman's Origin magazine and press (which included Robert Creeley, Charles Olson, and two earlier Objectivists, George Oppen and Louis Zukofsky). He is one of the most musical of American avant-garde poets. Enslin was born in Chester, Pennsylvania. His father was a noted biblical scholar and his mother a teacher of Latin. He studied musical composition at Cambridge, Massachusetts with Nadia Boulanger, who recognized his ability as a writer and encouraged him to pursue his interest in poetry. He has said “I like to be considered as a composer who happens to use words instead of notes.” Enslin moved to Maine in 1960 and has lived in Washington County ever since, working at odd jobs and making and selling handmade walking sticks. The Maine landscape forms an integral part of his poetry, as does the isolation, both geographic and in terms of distance from literary fashion and the academy. Ranger (1978) is regarded as one of the key American long poems of the second half of the 20th century.

Review:

Enslin writes himself a life, a melodious, ideal and legendary one, a dream life that comes to the man-child when he decides to make art his life. This tale is charming, and is, besides, a marvelous recipee for making oneself a life out of words. The reader roams this confined paradise until it suddenly opens, and then one wants to stay. --Andrei Codrescu

About this edition

• Publisher: McPherson
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0929701909
• ISBN 13: 9780929701905
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 64