The Sleep Of Reason (Phoenix Poets),New

Product Descriptionthe Sleep Of Reason Plunges Us Into A Macabre World Where Good Impulses Bring On Evil Consequencesa World Not Unlike Our Own. In David Gewanter'S Alternately Delightful And Startling Poems, Allegory Comes Alive And Stalks A Bookstore'S Musty Aisles, Comedians Eviscerate Their Families For A Laugh, Lovers Love Each Other For Withholding Affection, And Theaters Collapse On Audiences Hungry For Spectacle. Amidst Such Surreal Subjects, Gewanter'S Delicate Musicality And Keen Sense Of Humor Sparkle; His Inquisition Regarding A Fallen World Becomes A Dark Comedy Of Errors Haunted By The Most Unexpected Charactersfrom Jfk Jr. To Tacitus, Redd Foxx To General Motors, Mariah Carey To 100 Rabbits With Herpes. An Offbeat Satire For An Offkilter Age, The Sleep Of Reason Offers An Incisive Guide To Moral Behavior In An Immoral World.From Publishers Weeklyin A Wry, Arch, Selfconsciously Eliotic Voice, Gewanter Attempts In This Second Collection To Chart A Vexed Moral Universe: 'Daily I Am Told/ To Love My Neighborbut Huddled/ Inside My Love Is A Loathing For His Filthy Life.' Socially Conscious Lyrics That Pick Up From Robert Lowell (Gewanter Was The Coeditor Of The Recently Released Lowell Collected) Juxtapose The Classical With The Contemporary: Bill Clinton Comes On As Catullus; A Parkinson'S Patient Is Called 'Mr. Circe.' General Motors, Hitler, Charles Atlas And John F. Kennedy Jr. Appear In The Book'S Second Half. The Harm/Help Binarism Is Mined Relentlessly: Animal Rights Activists Free Diseased Rabbits; Quakers Hunt Whales For God. Throughout, A Lowelllike Visceral Force Contends With A Tendency Toward Cleverness ('Is Cassius Clay?'). 'Chai 19242000,'An Elegy For The Israeli Poet Yehuda Amichai, Can'T Quite Forgo That Archness, Ruminating On 'Your Name, In The Macaroni/ Of Tongues, Ahmehide,/ Foreign And Sentimental// As The Pendant Chailife/ Noosing The Ancients Of St. Pete/ Waiting For The Early Bird Special/ ...Drop The Page,/ Come Out. Come Out.' Yet The Overall Impression That The Book Leaves Is Of A Seriousness And Rigor In Trying To Find A Means To Moral Clarity; Even If It Sometimes Seems 'Scrawled/ Onto Vanna'S Body,' It Is, Finally, 'A Love Letter/ Charge/ Of Piety.'Copyright Reed Business Information, A Division Of Reed Elsevier Inc. All Rights Reserved.From The Inside Flapthe Sleep Of Reason Plunges Us Into A Macabre World Where Good Impulses Bring On Evil Consequencesa World Not Unlike Our Own. In David Gewanter'S Alternately Delightful And Startling Poems, Allegory Comes Alive And Stalks A Bookstore'S Musty Aisles, Comedians Eviscerate Their Families For A Laugh, Lovers Love Each Other For Withholding Affection, And Theaters Collapse On Audiences Hungry For Spectacle. Amidst Such Surreal Subjects, Gewanter'S Delicate Musicality And Keen Sense Of Humor Sparkle; His Inquisition Regarding A Fallen World Becomes A Dark Comedy Of Errors Haunted By The Most Unexpected Charactersfrom Jfk Jr. To Tacitus, Redd Foxx To General Motors, Mariah Carey To 100 Rabbits With Herpes. An Offbeat Satire For An Offkilter Age, The Sleep Of Reason Offers An Incisive Guide To Moral Behavior In An Immoral World.From The Back Coverthe Sleep Of Reason Plunges Us Into A Macabre World Where Good Impulses Bring On Evil Consequencesa World Not Unlike Our Own. In David Gewanter'S Alternately Delightful And Startling Poems, Allegory Comes Alive And Stalks A Bookstore'S Musty Aisles, Comedians Eviscerate Their Families For A Laugh, Lovers Love Each Other For Withholding Affection, And Theaters Collapse On Audiences Hungry For Spectacle. Amidst Such Surreal Subjects, Gewanter'S Delicate Musicality And Keen Sense Of Humor Sparkle; His Inquisition Regarding A Fallen World Becomes A Dark Comedy Of Errors Haunted By The Most Unexpected Charactersfrom Jfk Jr. To Tacitus, Redd Foxx To General Motors, Mariah Carey To 100 Rabbits With Herpes. An Offbeat Satire For An Offkilter Age, The Sleep Of Reason Offers