{"product_id":"figurehead-isbn-9780375704338","title":"Figurehead","description":"In a major review in \u003ci\u003eThe New Republic\u003c\/i\u003e of John Hollander's two earlier books, \u003cb\u003eTesserae\u003c\/b\u003e and \u003cb\u003eSelected Poetry\u003c\/b\u003e (both 1993), Vernon Shetley said, \"John Hollander's poetry has shown a visionary power just often enough to secure him a place as one of the major figures of our moment.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFigurehead, a lively, varied, and technically dazzling book, confirms the statement made by Henry Taylor in the \u003ci\u003eWashington Times:\u003c\/i\u003e \"John Hollander revels in technical challenges of unusual severity and complexity, yet most of his poems also have the emotional heft of something worth pausing over and remembering.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the most gifted of W. H. Auden's choices for the Yale Series of Younger Poets, Hollander has pursued the wide range and metrical brilliance of Auden's own poetry, so that this new book exhibits both a large compass of subject matter (from philosophical matters to personal narrative) and, as usual, some astonishing meditations on paintings--here, by Charles Sheeler, Rene Magritte, and Edward Hopper. By turns witty, touching, profound, mocking, ingenious, and always clever, Hollander's poems are a joy for the reader.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe is a modern master.\u003cb\u003eJOHN HOLLANDER\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry. His first, \u003ci\u003eA Crackling of Thorns\u003c\/i\u003e, was chosen by W. H. Auden as the 1958 volume in the Yale Series of Younger Poets. He wrote eight books of criticism, including the award-winning \u003ci\u003eRhyme’s Reason: A Guide to English Verse\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e The Work of Poetry, \u003c\/i\u003eand edited or coedited twenty-two collections, among them \u003ci\u003eThe Oxford Anthology of English Literature, American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, \u003c\/i\u003eand (with Anthony Hecht, with whom he shared the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 1983) \u003ci\u003eJiggery-Pokery: A Compendium of Double Dactyls.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr. Hollander attended Columbia and Indiana Universities and was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows of Harvard University. He taught at Connecticut College and Yale, and was a professor of English at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. In 1990 he received a MacArthur Fellowship. He died in August 2013.\"So Red\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlossoms in the late\u003cbr\u003eOctober light, of such a\u003cbr\u003esaturated red:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewhat can flower now?\u003cbr\u003eonly the now awakened\u003cbr\u003edark and dull maroon--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003elike the unburnished\u003cbr\u003emetal of copper beeches\u003cbr\u003eshadowing itself--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eof midsummer and\u003cbr\u003espring burning the japanese\u003cbr\u003emaple's dying leaves\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ehave fired the bursting\u003cbr\u003einto astonished color\u003cbr\u003eof the very self\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eof lateness, lastness\u003cbr\u003ewhich itself can never last\u003cbr\u003elonger than the few\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003emoments--in this case\u003cbr\u003eOctober days--it takes to make\u003cbr\u003eitself intense in,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eto put forth something\u003cbr\u003eof light that had either been\u003cbr\u003ewaiting all along\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eto reveal itself\u003cbr\u003eor more likely, escaping\u003cbr\u003eits dead body of\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eleaf. It hits the road\u003cbr\u003ewith a visual halloo\u003cbr\u003eas of a bright scarf\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eor a letting of\u003cbr\u003earterial blood in a\u003cbr\u003ehigh ceremony--\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eannual, but so\u003cbr\u003eloud this year--of impatience\u003cbr\u003eand acknowledgement.","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303336005861,"sku":"NP9780375704338","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375704338.jpg?v=1767726859","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/figurehead-isbn-9780375704338","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}