Then and Now: Selected Poems 1943-1993

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Poetry. Edited and with an interview of the author by Mark Nowak. With excerpts from or entire republications of 24 of Theodore Enslin's books spanning 50 years of writing, this volume provides an outstanding portrait of a life dedicated to poetry, through the poetry itself. "Seldom does Enslin use or recall nature as a metaphor; what he usually does is walk through it. He knows it in the way that the city dweller might know the city...For me this is the central and unique power of Theodore Enslin's poetry: he continues to try to articulate dearly those things that are the very ground of human experience" (Toby Olson). "Quiet revolves in the tick of a clock/not the time arbitrary/it releases into something/else the actual/it dies away" (from "Part Songs, " 1987). These poems do not "die away, " but again and again call our attention to the minute "actual" that makes up the lived life. The poems are delightful, the interview informative, the book a must for anyone interested in Enslin.

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