"This is poetry of maturity, of wisdom. . . . A beautiful book—distilled from years and years of living and writing."—Adam Zagajewski, author of Without End: New and Selected Poems
"Each of Hazo’s new poems is a spare, sparkling flow of good talk . . . readers will find this book utterly engaging."—Richard Wilbur, former U.S. Poet Laureate and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Description
Hazo, National Book Award finalist and former State Poet of Pennsylvania, transports the reader with poems of both lament and celebration in his sensual new collection. Like a Man Gone Mad features much of the spare yet precise imagery of his earlier work. Searing portraits, a deft use of allegorical language, and a wry sense of humor are all signatures of Hazo’s unique voice.
Taking up the theme of time, the poems carry the reader back and forth through personal and historical time, offering glimpses of a wide range of figures, from Pascal and Heraclitus to John F. Kennedy and Clark Gable. From each vantage point, Hazo meditates on themes of vitality and longevity, legacy and oblivion, and the enduring folly of both the individual and society. Accessible and eminently readable, the poems in Like a Man Gone Mad embody a rich intellectual and emotional curiosity.
About the Author
Samuel Hazo is the director of the International Poetry Forum in Pittsburgh, where he is also McAnulty Distinguished Professor of English Emeritus at Duquesne University. His books include The Rest is Prose, As They Sail, Stills, and This Part of the World, the latter two published by Syracuse University Press. His translations include Nadia Tueni’s Lebanon: Twenty Poems for One Love, also published by Syracuse University Press.
5.5 x 8.25, 124 pages
November 2010