Winter Amnesties (Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry) - Softcover

"Elton Glaser's poems are classic in the best sense of the word: he achieves stateliness without stuffiness and form without confinement. Glaser cannot keep himself from referencing the whole canon of our poetry, from a Yeats-inflected bit of self-description (the 'fifty-year-old frowning private man') to a ripped-off Shakespeare riff. Yet these poems take swings at their own erudition, and Glaser is likely, at those moments where we least expect it, to go at his elegant constructions with the pickax of the common tongue: 'It's all over, bud.' "Winter Amnesties" seamlessly mixes high culture and low, the 'glitz and zillion disciplines' of the universe that Glaser praises. This is an American poetry, a civic poetry infused with enough sly wit to make us root for the oak trees and the stars. These poems also will convince even the most jaded of postmodern readers that Beauty with a capital B is nothing to be ashamed of."--Lucia Perillo Elton Glaser s poems are classic in the best sense of the word: he achieves stateliness without stuffiness and form without confinement. Glaser cannot keep himself from referencing the whole canon of our poetry, from a Yeats-inflected bit of self-description (the fifty-year-old frowning private man ) to a ripped-off Shakespeare riff. Yet these poems take swings at their own erudition, and Glaser is likely, at those moments where we least expect it, to go at his elegant constructions with the pickax of the common tongue: It s all over, bud. "Winter Amnesties" seamlessly mixes high culture and low, the glitz and zillion disciplines of the universe that Glaser praises. This is an American poetry, a civic poetry infused with enough sly wit to make us root for the oak trees and the stars. These poems also will convince even the most jaded of postmodern readers that Beauty with a capital B is nothing to be ashamed of. Lucia Perillo" "Elton Glaser's poems are classic in the best sense of the word: he achieves stateliness without stuffiness and form without confinement. Glaser cannot keep himself from referencing the whole canon of our poetry, from a Yeats-inflected bit of self-description (the 'fifty-year-old frowning private man') to a ripped-off Shakespeare riff. Yet these poems take swings at their own erudition, and Glaser is likely, at those moments where we least expect it, to go at his elegant constructions with the pickax of the common tongue: 'It's all over, bud.' "Winter Amnesties" seamlessly mixes high culture and low, the 'glitz and zillion disciplines' of the universe that Glaser praises. This is an American poetry, a civic poetry infused with enough sly wit to make us root for the oak trees and the stars. These poems also will convince even the most jaded of postmodern readers that Beauty with a capital B is nothing to be ashamed of."--Lucia Perillo " Elton Glaser' s poems are classic in the best sense of the word: he achieves stateliness without stuffiness and form without confinement. Glaser cannot keep himself from referencing the whole canon of our poetry, from a Yeats-inflected bit of self-description (the ' fifty-year-old frowning private man' ) to a ripped-off Shakespeare riff. Yet these poems take swings at their own erudition, and Glaser is likely, at those moments where we least expect it, to go at his elegant constructions with the pickax of the common tongue: ' It' s all over, bud.' "Winter Amnesties" seamlessly mixes high culture and low, the ' glitz and zillion disciplines' of the universe that Glaser praises. This is an American poetry, a civic poetry infused with enough sly wit to make us root for the oak trees and the stars. These poems also will convince even the most jaded of postmodern readers that Beauty with a capital B is nothing to be ashamed of." -- Lucia Perillo

In this text, each poem addresses the dilemma posed by G.K. Chesterton: ""One must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it."" The poems revisit the past, assess the present, and stare hard into the future.