Collected Poems Summary and Reviews

Collected Poems
by Paul Auster

Collected Poems
List Price: $16.95
Our Price: $4.95
You Save: $12.00 (71%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.89 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


or

Book Summary Information

Author: Paul Auster
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-06-26
ISBN: 1585679119
Number of pages: 206
Publisher: Overlook TP

Book Reviews of Collected Poems

Book Review: Austere Auster
Summary: 5 Stars

I've enjoyed all that I've read of Paul Auster's fiction and essays, so I was eager to delve into his poetry. Not surprisingly to anyone whose read his prose, much of Auster's poetry focuses on the landscape of chance. The drifts of collected coincidence within the stochastic that culminate in meaning. It's the struggle to resist chance without embrcing fate. All the while, one feels from Auster a desperate desire to stand outside it all, though he is acutely aware of the paradox within that desire. It is the abstract laboring to be concrete. Shrodinger's Poet.

"Collected Poems" starts with poetry from the early seventies, when Auster was in his early twenties. They are bleak and gloomy in tone and yet do have a lyrical musical tone that creates some forward momentum. They made me think of some of the kids I knew in college, the front-row philosophy majors that were a little lost in their own heads.

From 1970's "Spoke," (11):

To see is this other torture, atoned for
In the pain of being seen: the spoken,
The seen, contained in the refusal
To speak, and the seed of a single voice,
Buried in a random stone.
My lies have never belonged to me.


We then move forward in time to the mid and late seventies, weightier ruminations such as "Disappearances," "Fragments from Cold," and "Facing the Music."

From "Fragments from Cold:"

Because we go blind
in the day that goes out with us,
and because we have seen out breath
cloud
the mirror of air;
the eye of the air will open
on nothing but the word
we renounce: winter
will have been a place
of ripeness.

We who become the dead
of another life than ours.


We then step back in time and read some of Auster's translations of the French poets who were his early influences. Then some unpublished "Notes From a Composition Book" from 1967, a succession of statements attempting to construct a philosophy on reality, epistemology, the nature of language, art, and so on. For example, number 10: "The eye sees the world in flux. The word is an attempt to arrest the flow, to stabilize it. And yet we persist in trying to translate experience in language. Hence poetry, hence the utterances of daily life. This is the faith that prevents universal despair- and also causes it." It ends on number 13, with the conclusion that if words fail him, he is nothing.

A little self-indulgent and pretentious at times, but that goes with the territory. Overall much of it is beautiful writing and all of it is well worth reading. This early work also functions as the back-story, helping me appreciate Auster's prose in a deeper way.

Recommended, thumbs up, if you are an Auster fan it should be mandatory.

Literature & Fiction Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Books I read in 2009
Antoine's Alphabet: Watteau and His World ImageAntoine's Alphabet: Watteau and His World
by Jed Perl
Knopf; Published: 2008-09-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.82
Price in other shops: $25.00
Marx's Das Kapital: A Biography (Books That Changed the World) ImageMarx's Das Kapital: A Biography (Books That Changed the World)
by Francis Wheen
Grove Press; Published: 2008-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.79
Price in other shops: $13.00
Democratic Capitalism and Its Discontents ImageDemocratic Capitalism and Its Discontents
by Brian C. Anderson
Intercollegiate Studies Institute; Published: 2007-06-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.44
Price in other shops: $25.00
The Tomb in Seville: Crossing Spain on the Brink of Civil War ImageThe Tomb in Seville: Crossing Spain on the Brink of Civil War
by Norman Lewis
Da Capo Press; Published: 2006-01-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.57
Price in other shops: $14.95
Music for Chameleons ImageMusic for Chameleons
by Truman Capote
Vintage; Published: 1994-03-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.84
Price in other shops: $13.95
The New York Trilogy (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) ImageThe New York Trilogy (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
by Paul Auster
Penguin Classics; Published: 2006-03-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops: $16.00
The Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America ImageThe Moronic Inferno and Other Visits to America
by Martin Amis
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1991-04-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops: $14.00
Totally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews and Overviews ImageTotally Wired: Post-Punk Interviews and Overviews
by Simon Reynolds
faber and faber; Published: 2009; Paperback; Book
High Fidelity: A Novel ImageHigh Fidelity: A Novel
by Nick Hornby
Riverhead Trade; Published: 2005-10-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.00
Price in other shops: $15.95
My Fault ImageMy Fault
by Billy Childish
Codex; Published: 1991-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $40.00
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
The Brooklyn Follies: A Novel ImageThe Brooklyn Follies: A Novel
by Paul Auster
Picador; Published: 2006-10-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.50
Price in other shops: $14.00
The Inner Life of Martin Frost ImageThe Inner Life of Martin Frost
by Paul Auster, Glenn Thomas
Mark Batty Publisher; Published: 2008-10-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $22.70
Price in other shops: $55.00
Timbuktu: A Novel ImageTimbuktu: A Novel
by Paul Auster
Picador; Published: 2000-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.98
Price in other shops: $12.00
The New York Trilogy (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) ImageThe New York Trilogy (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)
by Paul Auster
Penguin Classics; Published: 2006-03-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.00
Price in other shops: $16.00
Man in the Dark: A Novel ImageMan in the Dark: A Novel
by Paul Auster
Picador; Published: 2009-04-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.90
Price in other shops: $14.00
The Music of Chance ImageThe Music of Chance
by Paul Auster
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1991-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.99
Price in other shops: $15.00
Travels in the Scriptorium: A Novel ImageTravels in the Scriptorium: A Novel
by Paul Auster
Henry Holt and Co.; Published: 2007-01-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.65
Price in other shops: $22.00
Moon Palace (Contemporary American Fiction) ImageMoon Palace (Contemporary American Fiction)
by Paul Auster
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1990-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.68
Price in other shops: $15.00
The Invention of Solitude ImageThe Invention of Solitude
by Paul Auster
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2007-01-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.18
Price in other shops: $14.00
Collected Prose: Autobiographical Writings, True Stories, Critical Essays, Prefaces, and Collaborations with Artists ImageCollected Prose: Autobiographical Writings, True Stories, Critical Essays, Prefaces, and Collaborations with Artists
by Paul Auster
Picador; Published: 2005-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.50
Price in other shops: $17.00