Editors Select

Peter Michelson, editor. The Extant Poetry and Prose of Max Michelson, Imagist (1880-1953), Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. NDR contributor Peter Michelson has edited and introduced the poems and prose of his grandfather, Max, who was one of the original Imagists and associated with Hariet Monroe and Poetry magazine between 1915 and 1921. Following the elegant foreword by Michael Anania, Michelson writes a moving forty page biographical and autobiographical essay which tells the sad story of Max's life--he was interned in a mental hospital from 1921 until his death in 1953--and Peter's thirty year attempt to recover what he could find of Max's work. The poems are well worth recovering and Michelson's story of the search for information about his grandfather's troubled life is fascinating.

Fanny Howe, Selected Poems, University of California Press, 2000. One of the first three volumes in the New California Poetry series edited by Robert Hass, Calvin Bedient and Brenda Hillman, this selection is the best possible introduction to Fanny Howe's work. Less radically experimental than the work of her sister, Susan Howe, these spare and rather Dickinsonian poems grow on one. The long concluding cycle, "O'Clock," is particularly impressive. Other books in the first group of selections for the UC series are by Carol Snow and Mark Levine.

Christopher Middleton, Faint Harps and Silver Voices: Selected Translations, Carcanet press, 2000. Although Christopher Middleton has taught at the University of Texas for many years, the work of this fine British poet and translator has been badly neglected in this country. The present volume is one of the most interesting books of translations by a major poet since Robert Lowell's controversial Imitations. Middleton organizes the book thematically rather than chronologically and works from many languages, among them German, French, Swedish, Spanish, Arabic, and Turkish. This is the work of more than forty years; it is a window on many worlds.

Gjertrud Schnackenberg, The Throne of Labdacus, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Published simultaneously with Supernatural Love, which collects Schnackenberg's first three books, The Throne of Labdacus is a book length poem about the Oedipus story that tells "what happens outside the play." This is Schnackenberg's longest and most ambitious poem to date and takes its place beside her major cycles such as "Crux of Radiance" and "A Moment in Utopia" in A Gilded Lapse of Time. She is a poet of vision and passion; everyone should read her.

Adam Zagajewski, Another Beauty, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Zagajewski's prose is as original and rich, as strange and ironic, as funny and sad as his poetry. Part memoir, part meditation, Another Beauty reflects on his early years in Poland, especially his student days in Krakow, and his present life in Paris. Zagajewski's previous volume of prose, Two Cities, was praised by a range of reviewers that included John Ashbery, Richard Howard, Susan Sontag and Edward Hirsch. What Howard said of the previous book is also true of this one: "Clarity of utterance is one thing, imaginative intensity quite another. Finding them together in poetry is not unheard of. . .but to have them in the other harmony of prose is a pervasive wonder." The excellent translation is by Clare Cavanagh.

	Peter Michelson, editor. The Extant Poetry and Prose of Max Michelson, Imagist (1880-1953), Edwin Mellen Press, 2000. NDR contributor Peter Michelson has edited and introduced the poems and prose of his grandfather, Max, who was one of the original Imagists and associated with Hariet Monroe and Poetry magazine between 1915 and 1921. Following the elegant foreword by Michael Anania, Michelson writes a moving forty page biographical and autobiographical essay which tells the sad story of Max's life--he was interned in a mental hospital from 1921 until his death in 1953--and Peter's thirty year attempt to recover what he could find of Max's work. The poems are well worth recovering and Michelson's story of the search for information about his grandfather's troubled life is fascinating.
	Fanny Howe, Selected Poems, University of California Press, 2000. One of the first three volumes in the New California Poetry series edited by Robert Hass, Calvin Bedient and Brenda Hillman, this selection is the best possible introduction to Fanny Howe's work. Less radically experimental than the work of her sister, Susan Howe, these spare and rather Dickinsonian poems grow on one. The long concluding cycle, "O'Clock," is particularly impressive. Other books in the first group of selections for the UC series are by Carol Snow and Mark Levine.
	Christopher Middleton, Faint Harps and Silver Voices: Selected Translations, Carcanet press, 2000. Although Christopher Middleton has taught at the University of Texas for many years, the work of this fine British poet and translator has been badly neglected in this country. The present volume is one of the most interesting books of translations by a major poet since Robert Lowell's controversial Imitations. Middleton organizes the book thematically rather than chronologically and works from many languages, among them German, French, Swedish, Spanish, Arabic, and Turkish. This is the work of more than forty years; it is a window on many worlds.
	Gjertrud Schnackenberg, The Throne of Labdacus, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Published simultaneously with Supernatural Love, which collects Schnackenberg's first three books, The Throne of Labdacus is a book length poem about the Oedipus story that tells "what happens outside the play." This is Schnackenberg's longest and most ambitious poem to date and takes its place beside her major cycles such as "Crux of Radiance" and "A Moment in Utopia" in A Gilded Lapse of Time. She is a poet of vision and passion; everyone should read her.
	Adam Zagajewski, Another Beauty, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Zagajewski's prose is as original and rich, as strange and ironic, as funny and sad as his poetry. Part memoir, part meditation, Another Beauty reflects on his early years in Poland, especially his student days in Krakow, and his present life in Paris. Zagajewski's previous volume of prose, Two Cities, was praised by a range of reviewers that included John Ashbery, Richard Howard, Susan Sontag and Edward Hirsch. What Howard said of the previous book is also true of this one: "Clarity of utterance is one thing, imaginative intensity quite another. Finding them together in poetry is not unheard of. . .but to have them in the other harmony of prose is a pervasive wonder." The excellent translation is by Clare Cavanagh.