Destination Zero: Poems 1970-1995 - Softcover

Hamill, Sam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1877727539 ISBN 13: 9781877727535

Publisher: White Pine Press, 1995

Synopsis

Sam Hamill is the author of over thirty books of poetry, essays and translations of poetry from classical Chinese to Ancient Greek.

“Sam Hamill’s poems have been part of my indispensable reading for many years. Direct, earthy, yet intelligent and sensitive, they are in the best tradition of the American West, I think, and at the same time in a beautifully original voice with touches of Oriental subtlety. Very highly recommended.”—Hayden Carruth

About this title

About the Author:

Sam Hamill

From Publishers Weekly:

As founding editor of Copper Canyon Press, Hamill has encouraged a generation of young American poets. But his own spare, haunting works are mostly out of print and overlooked, a state this expansive collection should remedy. The works here, featuring a plain-spoken English that is heavily influenced by his studies and translations of Japanese and Chinese poetry, generally consider aging ("this slow, insistent tolling/ of our flesh") and death ("It is beautiful and sad/ the way we,/ dying/ make monuments of the dead"). Arranged in roughly chronological order, the poems chart Hamill's development from early autobiographical pieces that examine his history and its particular contexts ("Dead Letter" and "Man in the Landscape") to later, longer works ("Requiem" and "Blue Monody") that exhibit his engagement with Eastern thought and poetry and explore an interior terrain. Taken together, Hamill's depiction of his travels and loves, his fear of death and love of life become one long argument that, as he notes, "The untouchable touches us./ What is beautiful alters."
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: White Pine Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 1877727539
• ISBN 13: 9781877727535
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 236