{"product_id":"broadway-for-paul-isbn-9780525656579","title":"Broadway for Paul","description":"\u003cb\u003eFriendship, love, and the potential energy of change animate these poems of walking through New York City.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"I love the vibrant cinematic hunger of this book, its urbanity, yours and mine too.” —Eileen Myles\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBroadway, the famous artery, both off the grid and definitive of Manhattan as it cuts its way downtown, is a metaphor for Katz's path through these poems.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eFrom Lincoln Plaza on the Upper West Side to the African Burial Ground and the courthouses downtown, Katz mines his native city for the deep humanity that undergirds its streets. His title, with its implication that one could give something as large and undefinable as Broadway to a single person, courts an impossibility that generates the possibility of friendship, as well as the largesse Katz wants to find in our civic discourse. In poems such as \"Ivanka Skirting\" and \"This Beautiful Bubble\" we encounter his reckoning with a divisive culture that can, he suggests, be healed through our daily acts--through a kind of alert graciousness that also defines his poetry.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIn this moving collection, we enter Katz's world, both public and private, and experience poetry as a way of seeing that can change hearts and minds.“A mature and accomplished collection . . . A voice in the grand tradition of New York poetry, from Walt Whitman to Frank O’Hara, engaging in ‘equable’ conversation (Whitman’s term) with the city’s people and places . . . Poetic comradeship is at the heart of one of Katz’s tours-de-force in the collection, ‘Lincoln Plaza,’ where optimism emerges as an essential ingredient for life . . . [Pushes] the reader to often arresting conclusions, encompassing ever-growing human and spatial relationships.” \u003cb\u003e—Paul Vangelisti, \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Often matter-of-fact in tone, stripped of rococo embellishment or flowery pretense, these poem-objects by poet, art writer and translator Vincent Katz stand as testimony to keen observance and thoughtful assessment . . . [Katz] denotes the connective tissue we share not only with the seen but the experienced as well.” \u003cb\u003e—Greg Masters, \u003ci\u003eSensitive Skin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The poet shows his hometown from many different vantage points—always with a sense of love and subtle astonishment . . . Katz pushes one mood against another and turns abruptly from shadow to light . . . [\u003ci\u003eBroadway for Paul\u003c\/i\u003e] is like a good conversation, in which you listen with care to the possibilities language affords.” \u003cb\u003e—Neeli Cherkovski, \u003ci\u003eperiodicities\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A wedding bouquet is tossed and we can’t see who the recipient is, yet the poems you read here are permissive, grateful, it’s the detail itself exploring, the foot on the edge of the river, the eye too, the man walking, standing, lyric love for manyness, and “suddenly I have x-ray vision, as Rudy said” and Vincent \u003ci\u003ehas \u003c\/i\u003ehistory, anyone, everyone’s view, and a thirst for justice, public love and blue parks. I love the vibrant cinematic hunger of this book, its urbanity, yours and mine too.” \u003cb\u003e—Eileen Myles\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e “We need this book. At a time when the world’s cultures seem to be closing up on themselves, Vincent Katz emphasizes the pleasure of sharing spaces, ideas, and art. His vision is generous and panoramic, with an eye toward detail and the abstract compositional beauty of crowds in motion and at rest, his style a combination of classical elegance and casual grace. But what makes these poems especially powerful is their democratic ethic. This is a virtuoso collection—and we’re all part of it.” \u003cb\u003e—Elaine Equi\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Celebrates walking down the streets of Manhattan, keenly aware of what Hart Crane called ‘the veins of eternity flowing through the crowds around us’ . . . all the while maintaining an awareness of the rainbow of people whose suffering and very bones prop us up and sustain our existence, leading the pedestrian to appreciate the sanctity of the ground on which they tread.” \u003cb\u003e—Jim Feast, \u003ci\u003eRain Taxi\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Remarkable . . . Katz’s wondrous and erratic perspective amuses the reader’s mind . . . One gets the impression that the poet is telling his story as he has lived it, in his own words and in his own way . . . Lucid, succinct, and fluent.” —\u003cb\u003eRochak Agarwal, \u003ci\u003ePegasus Literary\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eVINCENT KATZ is the author of the poetry collections \u003ci\u003eSouthness \u003c\/i\u003e(2016) and \u003ci\u003eSwimming Home\u003c\/i\u003e (2015) and of the book of translations, \u003ci\u003eThe Complete Elegies of Sextus Propertius \u003c\/i\u003e(2004), which won a National Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association. He is the editor of \u003ci\u003eBlack Mountain College: Experiment in Art\u003c\/i\u003e (2002), and his writing on contemporary art and poetry has appeared in publications such as \u003ci\u003eApollo, Art in America, ARTnews, The Brooklyn Rail, \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Poetry Project Newsletter.\u003c\/i\u003e As curator of the \"Readings in Contemporary Poetry\" series at Dia: Chelsea, Katz also edited the anthology \u003ci\u003eReadings in Contemporary Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e (Dia Art Foundation, 2017). He lives in New York City.BETWEEN THE GRIFFON AND MET LIFE\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efor Vivien\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI am totally enamored of every person passing in this\u003cbr\u003eunseasonably warm mid-March evening near\u003cbr\u003e39th and Park\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe young women, of course, with their lives in front of\u003cbr\u003ethem, and the young men too, just standing here as I am,\u003cbr\u003echecking it out, hanging out, talking\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBut everyone here, every age, every type, is beautiful, the\u003cbr\u003emoment, somehow, the weather, has made them all real\u003cbr\u003eand for this moment, before it turns to night, they’re all\u003cbr\u003efantastic\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe light is such that I can see everyone and can imagine\u003cbr\u003ewhat they are imagining for the night ahead, what dreams,\u003cbr\u003ewhat fulfilled fantasies of togetherness\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAnd the two guys who were here a moment ago, paused, have\u003cbr\u003emoved on, and the light is deepening, every moment or so,\u003cbr\u003eactually falling into a deeper stupor, which is night\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBut if I look south I still see the pink flush of desire there at\u003cbr\u003ethe bottom, the southness of all our lives, and it’s okay\u003cbr\u003ethat it’s darkening here, people accept it as they concoct\u003cbr\u003eplans for tonight, Thursday\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSoon I’ll have to go too, lose this spot, this moment, but some\u003cbr\u003ewe’ve met and some experience we had somewhere else is\u003cbr\u003ebecoming ever more important\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eTHIS BEAUTIFUL BUBBLE\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eEveryone takes the subway, and you can look up,\u003cbr\u003eAnd look at all the people, and each one is different,\u003cbr\u003eAnd they\u003ci\u003e look\u003c\/i\u003e different, and each one has a story, and\u003cbr\u003esuddenly,\u003cbr\u003eYou are awake and want to know each story, only you can’t,\u003cbr\u003eDon’t have time, they don’t, don’t want to maybe.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBut some you do, you glean, you approximate yourself to\u003cbr\u003esomething of them,\u003cbr\u003eLike the delicate, chestnut-skinned woman who, leaning,\u003cbr\u003eListened to the announcer before getting in, and, confused,\u003cbr\u003ebecause the 2 was called a 5,\u003cbr\u003eAsked advice, and three people responded,\u003cbr\u003eExplaining in their different ways, some of them silent,\u003cbr\u003eEyes met with approval, warmth only subway-known,\u003cbr\u003eAmong equals, fellow travelers, denizens;\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eShe sat and smiled, and looking at an infant,\u003cbr\u003eSmiled more, her hair was a flag of self-joy too,\u003cbr\u003eShe was real, at ease among people.\u003cbr\u003eThe rule is: to speak.\u003cbr\u003eMake contact, and you will find more people than you\u003cbr\u003ethought.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eBut back to our bubble. It is everywhere around us.\u003cbr\u003eEverywhere, walking in the city, you are seeing people,\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAll different kinds, shapes, sizes, the best education\u003cbr\u003eYou can give a child is to bring them up inside this\u003cbr\u003eBubble. I complain, but I’ll never leave.\u003cbr\u003eI feed off the looks, the stories, the hungering here.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI’m aware, we’re all aware, what goes on outside the bubble.\u003cbr\u003eWe’re not stupid. We just thought people outside the bubble\u003cbr\u003ewanted the same thing:\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eTo live as variously as possible.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOr, put another way: \u003ci\u003eI am the least difficult of men.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eAll I want is boundless love.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eIt took us sixty years or so to understand\u003cbr\u003eWhat the word “boundless” meant.\u003cbr\u003eAnd now we know.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e7 A.M. POEM\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThey carry their lunches in paper or plastic bags\u003cbr\u003eThey are rushing but composed\u003cbr\u003eThey don’t speak much\u003cbr\u003eThey’re quiet this morning, maybe preoccupied with big\u003cbr\u003eviolent forces moving in the capital\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThey have work to do and they are trying to do it\u003cbr\u003eFamilies to feed and teach or else\u003cbr\u003eJust moving ahead with life, trying to be someplace better\u003cbr\u003eA little further on ahead\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe people arriving on trains are not New Yorkers, but\u003cbr\u003eThey too are filled with desires, plans, wrapped in winter\u003cbr\u003ecoats\u003cbr\u003eAs the people crashed out on stairs or in abandoned buildings\u003cbr\u003ePeople in high boardrooms creating situations affecting those\u003cbr\u003ewith nothing\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eSEASONS\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI used to love the seasons\u003cbr\u003eNow I try to find one in a day\u003cbr\u003eSometimes all four, and others\u003cbr\u003eBut I still revel in fall wind causing me\u003cbr\u003eTo zip my jacket in early February\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eCITY TONE\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ePeople across the way are getting work done\u003cbr\u003eCluttered offices, boxes in windows, sill loaded\u003cbr\u003eOn the other side, direct view down hallway\u003cbr\u003eLined with photos, bricks in reflection, our gargoyle\u003cbr\u003eThis city’s primary tone is ambiguity\u003cbr\u003eA building here, a spire there, nothing connected\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eFebruary 10, 2017\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eWashington DC\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMORNING, OR EVENING?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eEverywhere, right now, parents are making breakfast,\u003cbr\u003eOlder people waking up alone, another day\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWalking down platform, seeing the flood of faces coming into\u003cbr\u003ethe city,\u003cbr\u003eOne is taken, not by a Heinrich Böllian sense of dull\u003cbr\u003esameness,\u003cbr\u003eBut rather that this is an epochal moment\u003cbr\u003eWe all share, we are all somehow in this together.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eRepeated rhythms, every Thursday, placing coins or a bill\u003cbr\u003eor two\u003cbr\u003eInto the open valise of the trumpeter always there—\u003cbr\u003eGrand Central he plays, and the lineage, where that music\u003cbr\u003eflows from,\u003cbr\u003eWhere it is going, an undeniable story in our midst,\u003cbr\u003eWoven into our fabric, that none, in their heart of hearts, can\u003cbr\u003edeny.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eImportant to be in one’s own head, not subject to advertising\u003cbr\u003eor even others’ art.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eLeaving tracks covered in snow, tracks in snow, rock\u003cbr\u003eimposing wall,\u003cbr\u003eCross the river, gain speed, struts protect the building from\u003cbr\u003efalling down.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eClouds travel faster than houses, farther back, we pass towns,\u003cbr\u003eSkirt highways, fly through wetlands,\u003cbr\u003eFaster than speed, we are bringing information, ways of\u003cbr\u003eseeing:\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eTransmit focus to fingers on controls,\u003cbr\u003eSo blighted, threatened, scared as little children, terrified of\u003cbr\u003eown ignorance.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis is a chapter; it will end,\u003cbr\u003eAnd there will be another chapter, and that will end, and\u003cbr\u003eso on,\u003cbr\u003eUntil we come to the end of the book, and that’s that.\u003cbr\u003eBut the thing is, what did your book add up to, what did it\u003cbr\u003esay?\u003cbr\u003eThe Greeks believed your character determines your fate.\u003cbr\u003eYou can veer here and there, but ultimately something inside\u003cbr\u003eyou, the way you are,\u003cbr\u003eHas already determined the kinds of choices you will make.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eA SONG BEYOND\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efor Audrey\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow do you measure success?\u003cbr\u003eThere were two things I asked people.\u003cbr\u003eShe traveled, wrote songs, and a clacking was heard in trees.\u003cbr\u003eA fox appeared in a field, waited, sat, seemed to want caress.\u003cbr\u003eThe trees’ black trunks stood, their branches intricate\u003cbr\u003eveining.\u003cbr\u003eThe sky went from dark blue to light cream,\u003cbr\u003eA star floated in its ether.\u003cbr\u003eThe field grew darker, less hospitable to the human.\u003cbr\u003eMost people never go anywhere.\u003cbr\u003eBy “go anywhere” I don’t mean a trip to Europe or Asia.\u003cbr\u003eI mean expand beyond their bounds.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eFLOWS\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI saw a couple embrace passionately on the corner\u003cbr\u003eAn old woman holding a young woman’s hand\u003cbr\u003eA woman escorting two toddlers\u003cbr\u003eA blast of sun in warm February almost March\u003cbr\u003eAgainst black and grey granite façade\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eRIVER\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis is where I’m a poet:\u003cbr\u003eRight here, at the edge of the river, in the cold\u003cbr\u003eThose colors at the end of day, in winter\u003cbr\u003eI’m able to have my own views out here\u003cbr\u003eAnd I can hear the water lapping\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eI love this curved building lit up at night\u003cbr\u003eLike somewhere in Germany\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eMETRO-NORTH\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eStratford’s arched bridge in haze\u003cbr\u003eBridgeport big business and sea\u003cbr\u003eEmpty lots and highways still courts\u003cbr\u003eArenas smoke ruined fabrication\u003cbr\u003eFairfield Metro giant facility shops\u003cbr\u003eFairfield cuteness is dilemma\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eGreenwich blonde brunette a modern\u003cbr\u003eSculpture and blasted rock\u003cbr\u003eStamford many get off a river\u003cbr\u003eModern dullness distracted by personal life\u003cbr\u003eChurch spire handles the sky\u003cbr\u003eNoroton Heights Darien cute little nervousness\u003cbr\u003eWestport light flickers on tree vines\u003cbr\u003eA river sailboat then shrubs\u003cbr\u003eFairfield glory tree and split rail\u003cbr\u003eBridgeport massive columns gutted field\u003cbr\u003eIglesia Cristiana Pescadores de Hombres\u003cbr\u003eGiant Machiavellian Factory\u003cbr\u003eConvolute intricate destruction\u003cbr\u003eChurch darkly subdues neighboring roomers\u003cbr\u003eStratford graffiti and prone rusted culverts\u003cbr\u003eAncient bridge abandoned piles\u003cbr\u003eMilford ancient buried dead\u003cbr\u003eWest Haven tall grass and cranes\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eWest Haven golden arch elevated\u003cbr\u003eElevated highway low homes\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ePockets of inlets\u003cbr\u003eMilford’s grave scrub bridge\u003cbr\u003ePass over highway highway pass over Bridgeport\u003cbr\u003eTug barge and ferry defrocked church\u003cbr\u003eGreen’s Farms highways electrical mains yard\u003cbr\u003eOcean wetlands Westport the gates to town\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ePelham Bay manor homes\u003cbr\u003eExtensive cemeteries\u003cbr\u003eRain-soaked ball courts\u003cbr\u003eFairfield Metro a large area\u003cbr\u003eA blank wall some parts painted white\u003cbr\u003eAn arch huge wood chunks stained\u003cbr\u003eMetal flap: rain protection? on bridge\u003cbr\u003eDerelict buildings being demolished\u003cbr\u003eMilford delapidated shacks with skylights\u003cbr\u003eWest Haven dirty snow mounds still line parking lot\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eNew Haven rainy platform train half in shed\u003cbr\u003eArray of tracks large-gauge dark gravel\u003cbr\u003eMilford a nice little street and marina\u003cbr\u003eSouthport a swan on an inlet\u003cbr\u003eGreen’s Farms wetlands yellow swamp grass leading out\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eNew Haven tower as in Christ Church painting\u003cbr\u003eSculls surprisingly on the Westport\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThis station is South Norwalk\u003cbr\u003eThe next station is Rowayton\u003cbr\u003eIt is Spring, the trees are in leaf\u003cbr\u003eFlowers lend a gentleness\u003cbr\u003eTo stocky warehouses\u003cbr\u003eBarracks-like storage units\u003cbr\u003eGiant, jagged rocks surge\u003cbr\u003eThe earth is full of life\u003cbr\u003eThe sun almost too bright in\u003cbr\u003eDarien’s cloud-fostered haze\u003cbr\u003eRiverside’s delicate apples\u003cbr\u003eLong-view river mouth\u003cbr\u003eDocks and decks like in Maine","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default 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