Doctor Jazz - Hardcover

Carruth, Hayden

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1556591632 ISBN 13: 9781556591631

Publisher: Copper Canyon Press, 2001

Synopsis

Hayden Carruth is a major literary figure and no survey of American poetry is complete without inclusion of his work.

In this newest book of poems—the first since his 1996 National Book Award—Carruth confronts the threadbare memories of old age and the fading winter view. From the bleakest circumstances—the death of his daughter, physical and mental pain, poverty—Carruth defiantly reclaims dignity and beauty. His poetry is at once classical and modern. With the spit and bop of a great jazzman playing all the right notes, Carruth lives his music, finding the perfect low tones of terrible loss, the highs of family and friendship. Yet he is also the wise old sage of classical Greece, warning, riddling, giving generous counsel and insight.

"At Seventy-Five: Rereading an Old Book"

My prayers have been answered, if they were prayers. I live.
I'm alive, and even in rather good health, I believe.
If I'd quit smoking I might live to be a hundred.
Truly this is astonishing, after the poverty and pain,
The suffering. Who would have thought that petty
Endurance could achieve so much?
And prayers—
Were they prayers? Always I was adamant
In my irreligion, and had good reason to be.
Yet prayer is not, I see in old age now,
A matter of doctrine or discipline, but rather
A movement of the natural human mind
Bereft of its place among the animals, the other
Animals. I prayed. Then on paper I wrote
Some of the words I said, which are these poems.

Hayden Carruth has won nearly every major award in poetry, including the National Book Award and the National Book Critic's circle Award. He is the author of 24 previous books of poetry and prose. He lives in Munnsville, NY.

About this title

About the Author:

Hayden Carruth is the author of twenty-five books of poetry, a novel, four books of criticism, and two anthologies, and has held fellowships from the Bollingen, Guggenheim and Lannan foundations, as well as the NEA. His many awards include the National Book Award for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Lenore Marshall/The Nation Award.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

The Half-Acre of Millet

So green the leaves in late September sun
So glossy those dark spikes of seed
Lying between the potatoes and the orchard
A hunting ground for the good king snake
that searched for shrews
"A tonic for the cows before they go into the barn
for the long winter,"
Marshall said, and he would turn them into it
How they romped and sang
How they gorged on the sweetness
At last it was trampled and rubbled, the leaves, panicles,
and stalks were all eaten
And then a day or two later the cows went reluctantly
to their stanchions
Into the dark muttering and complaining

Now I'm sickly and old and altogether somewhere else
Marshall is a voice from the dusty closet of history
I keep looking for my own half-acre of millet
in the autumn sun
but I don't find it
Now I'm told they don't plant millet around here.

About this edition

• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1556591632
• ISBN 13: 9781556591631
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 148