April Bernard, in her new collection The World Behind the World: Poems from W. W. Norton & Company, includes John Ashbery among her “host of saints.”
The World Behind the World: Poems
Hardcover
Price: $26.95
Details
ISBN-10: 1324036206
ISBN-13: 9781324036203
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publish Date: 03/14/2023
Dimensions: 0.00" L, 0.00" W, 0.00" H
Overview
Balancing emotional openness with formal restraint, April Bernard proves once again a poet who “harmonizes the raucous and the classic, the songful and the wry, the courtly and the quick” (Wayne Koestenbaum). Throughout her sixth collection, Bernard searches for “the world behind the world,” a spiritual realm of justice and peace, music and grace. The host of saints present in this parallel world includes poets–John Ashbery, Thomas Wyatt, Gerard Manley Hopkins–as well as folklore spirits, animals wild and domestic, and personal ghosts.
Mystical, daring, expertly crafted, and ironic, The World Behind the World embarks on a wide-ranging journey through memory and loss to reach “that other world, where nothing human can wreck us.” Along the way, the poet conjures lush woodlands and icy oceans, wry conversations with voices from the past, and transformative moments of reckoning and healing. Rising up from despair, anger, and grief, this powerful collection proposes a moving, personal faith.