The Invention of Influence
Peter Cole
(Author)
Harold Bloom
(Foreword by)
Description
Peter Cole has been called "an inspired writer" (The Nation) and "one of the handful of authentic poets of his own American generation" (Harold Bloom). In this, his fourth book of poems, he presents a ramifying vision of human linkage. At the heart of the collection stands the stunning title poem, which brings us into the world of Victor Tausk, a maverick and tragic early disciple of Freud who wrote about one of his patients' mental inventions -- an "influence machine" that controlled his thoughts. In Cole's symphonic poem, this machine becomes a haunting image for the ways in which tradition and the language of others shape so much of what we think and say. The shorter poems in this rich and surprising volume treat the dynamics of coupling, the curiously varied nature of perfection, the delights of the senses, the perils of poetic vocation, and more.Product Details
Price
$16.95
$15.76
Publisher
New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publish Date
January 29, 2014
Pages
120
Dimensions
5.9 X 0.6 X 8.9 inches | 0.5 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780811221726
BISAC Categories:
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
About the Author
Peter Cole was born in Paterson, New Jersey, in 1957. He has written several previous books of poems, including Hymns & Qualms and Rift, and he has also translated widely from Hebrew and Arabic works--both medieval and modern. He is the recipient of many honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation, a National Jewish Book Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship. He divides his time between Jerusalem and New Haven.
The Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Harold Bloom (b. 1930) has been hailed as "one of our greatest living literary critics" (Los Angeles Times).
Reviews
Cole is not a household name, but this MacArthur Fellow has had a long and impressive career as a poet. There is a quiet, streaming power in his work that leads the reader back to it over and over again.
Cole's poetry is remarkable for its combination of intellectual rigor with delight in surface, for how its prosody returns each abstraction to the body, linking thought and breath, metaphysics and musicality. Religious, erotic, elegiac, pissed off -- the affective range is wide and the forms restless.--Ben Lerner "Bomb "
Cole's poetry is remarkable for its combination of intellectual rigor with delight in surface, for how its prosody returns each abstraction to the body, linking thought and breath, metaphysics and musicality. Religious, erotic, elegiac, pissed off -- the affective range is wide and the forms restless.--Ben Lerner "Bomb "
