Crossing the Equator: New and Selected Poems 1972-2004

Book Description
Since his poetry began appearing in the New Yorker when he was in his early twenties, Nicholas Christopher has been praised as one of America's most important poets by such literary talents as John Ashbery, Charles Simic, James Merrill, and Anthony Hecht, among others. Crossing the Equator collects Christopher's best work from the past three decades and includes a section of new poems that are among his finest. Exploring with equal brilliance the labyrinths of history and the human heart, the jagged magic of urban life and the illuminations of travel, the luminous and transformative voice of Crossing the Equator puts on display Christopher's dazzling power and myriad depths.


Cold missiles and a rain
of embers accompany the men
who slide like shadows into the city
faces mud-smeared
stones for teeth no eyes

who slit the throats of everyone
they encounter until breaking down
my door they drag me into the darkness
that floods the corridor
and lock me in an icy chamber
-from "The Last Hours of Laódikê, Sister of Hektor"






About the Author
NICHOLAS CHRISTOPHER is the author of seven volumes of poetry and four novels, including most recently Franklin Flyer. He is a regular contributor to the NewYorker, Esquire, the Nation, the New Republic, the Paris Review and other notable magazines, and has received numerous awards and fellowships. A professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia University, he lives in New York City.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Lake Como

The searchlight of a February moon
at the end of the street
bare trees black railing
an eastern star set like a pearl atop a steeple
that shadows the doorway
where the one-armed card sharp squats
shuffling his deck on a milk crate
waiting for the No. 6 bus to discharge
the off-duty cop the seamstress
the drunken mechanic and the clerk on crutches
who pauses before his building to watch
the mechanic lose three dollars at blackjack
and then stiffly ascends the five flights
to his two rooms on a shaftway
hanging his coat on a hook
and sitting down at the table
on which this morning he placed
a soup bowl and spoon
a tin of crackers and the crossword
puzzle he had been laboring over
beneath the gaze of his late wife
her color photograph propped up in a small frame
a young woman in a boxy dress and felt cap
waving shyly by the edge of a lake
where over her shoulder beneath a clear sky
a sailboat rides the wind
passengers on the polished deck
gazing at the glowing mountain peaks
the cypresses lining the shore
and the pink palazzi with ancient gardens
these men and women in white
who seem to live upon the water
gliding among themselves oblivious to strife
and all else that wears a body down
some sipping from crystal goblets
others just drinking in the light


Copyright © 2004 by Nicholas Christopher

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The author of seven volumes of poetry and four novels, Christopher is an acutely perceptive lyricist whose verse abounds with graceful rhythm and evocative imagery that culminates in the powerful, if often subdued, last few lines. Although featuring only nine new poems, this "best of" showcases an impressive diversity of Christopher's oeuvre. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


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