Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts

Auteur

Lawrence Raab was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and received a BA from Middlebury College and an MA from Syracuse University. He is author of seven previous collections of poems, and his What We Don't Know About Each Other was a finalist for the 1993 National Book Award. He has received the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Council on the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as numerous residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell. He teaches literature and writing at Williams College.

Texte du rabat

Poetry. 2015 National Book Award Longlist. "Raab, a regularly anthologized poet with more than half a dozen collections of poetry, including What We Don't Know about Each Other (1993), a finalist for the National Book Award, continues to present his colloquial brand of prose poems with precise lyrical conversation in his latest book. These poems offer powerful evocations of the most human of themes: loneliness, the haunting resolution of doubt, love's many shades, and a deeply intelligent form of comfort amid the messiness of emotions. Always, reason balances high sentiment and dramatic outbursts. Raab's is a wholly American voice that reveals itself in sardonic humor and reflection as the poet addresses universal, philosophical quandaries; heaven and hell; and everything in between: 'Is there anything you want to know ? / my father once asked me. / I can't picture the scene. Were we out on the lawn? / Was a baseball involved? No, I said, / taken by surprise. And he turned away, / embarrassed and relieved.' A wonderful, mature, sweeping collection."--Mark Eleveld