“Frivolity and disposable culture collide
and meld with loss, childhood and love as if all were set loose inside a
particle accelerator. The result is an awareness that at times blossoms
exponentially.” —New
York Times Book Review
“a poet with a voice and vista large enough to seem like multitudes. . . . He has been one of poetry's most enthusiastic makers.” —Poetry
“Frivolity and disposable culture collide
and meld with loss, childhood and love as if all were set loose inside a
particle accelerator. The result is an awareness that at times blossoms
exponentially.” —New
York Times Book Review
“If there were only one poet left to depict the beauty and tragic innocence that lie buried under the zowie-yahoo merchandising of Amerika, I'd pick Goldbarth. Popular Culture is a little jigsaw smorgasbord of immense scope, weight, and impact.” —Jack Myers
Popular Culture is a community of related poems that follow their concerns—the death of a parent, the wedding of body and spirit, the patterns we place upon chaos, the ancient battle of memory versus loss—through a landscape populated by Little Orphan Annie, Captain Midnight, Frankenstein, Donald Duck, Sherlock Holmes, and the Shangri-las. Goldbarth's world is decorated with whoopee cushions, chipped ceramic hula dancers, and 1950s “boomerang” ashtrays. He is convinced that the sacred and the everyday may equally be vessels for our griefs and pleasures—here, the High Gods of ancient Egypt stand beside a collection of Disneyana “display-cased as if the fate of the cosmos always rested on one / human being's accepting one task with devotion.” Or as another poem puts it, “UFOs are the 20th century's angels.” Densely textured, finding their energy in narrative and litany, these frequently multi-sectioned poems invite us to enter as worlds are entered, to be lived in fully.
Albert Goldbarth is Distinguished Professor
of Humanities in the department of English at Wichita State University.
He is the author of eight other collections of poetry, including Adventures
in Ancient Egypt and Marriage, and Other Science Fiction.
| 1989 95 pp. | |
| $16.95 paper 978-0-8142-0499-3 (0-8142-0499-6) | Add paperback to shopping cart |
| The Ohio State University Press/The Journal Award in Poetry |
