Books by Glyn Maxwell
Hide Now
by Glyn Maxwell
Glyn Maxwell's previous book, The Sugar Mile, was heralded as a bold expansion of the art of poetry. Hide Now, his newest collection, written in wry, colloquial language and employing a brilliant array of poetic forms, delivers a commentary on the icons and iconic moments of the present. With a vision both apocalyptic and comic, Maxwell takes us from Robespierre to Dick Cheney to Guns N' Roses, from the unearthly quiet of a war zone to the pompous flapping of a flag to the sound of a departed friend's voice: "a certain note / I almost hear, can almost manage / in this throat." Hide Now is further evidence that Maxwell is the most adept heir to the poetic legacies of W. H. Auden and Robert Frost; James Wood described him as "the major poet of his generation." Fierce, direct, and bristling with intelligence, Hide Now is a remarkable addition to the oeuvre of a truly original poet.
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The Nerve: Poems
by Glyn Maxwell
A haunting and powerful collection, The Nerve captures the strangeness and splendor of America in the twenty-first century. Glyn Maxwell's characters include FBI agents, the Californian "wild child" Genie, a man who holds his own funeral, and women writing love letters to men on Death Row. From college football games to television weather reports, from hayrides to hunting tragedies, Maxwell's brilliant lyrics and narratives explore American life and legend.
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The Sugar Mile
by Glyn Maxwell
This stirring verse narrative begins when the poet steps into an uptown Manhattan bar a few days before September 11, 2001. Encountering Joe Stone, a fellow Brit and a barstool regular, the narrator becomes the fated scribe of Joe's memories of London's "Black Saturday," the start of the worst of the Blitz during World War II. As the old man's haunting recollections of the prelude to the Blitz collide with a New York bartender's blithe optimism about the glories of America, we begin to discern the shadows and reflections of the past in New York's impending catastrophe. Deftly moving from past to present, using various poetic forms to delineate each character's unique voice, this verse drama explores everyday beauty and innocence on the brink of disaster.
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The Sugar Mile
by Glyn Maxwell
The Sugar Mile juxtaposes two cities on the brink of irrevocable change. It begins when the poet steps into an uptown Manhattan bar a few days before September 11, 2001. He is confronted by Joseph Stone, a barstool regular and a fellow expatriate. "What a mess the young man's made...with his poetry pen...Warm the beer, Raul, there's an English gent on duty." It has been almost exactly sixty-one years since London's "Black Saturday," the start of the worst of the Blitz during World War II.
Joe is a survivor of the bombing and his insistent story brings his lost neighbors back to share the terror and the peculiar beauty blooming in the chaos of their last days. Raul, the bartender, interrupts to brag about New York's wonders - as we begin to understand that the city soon will face its own catastrophic moment in history.
As Stone's memories grow more hallucinatory and the bar in New York ends another day, the chance encounter of two strangers takes on the inevitability of fate.
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On Poetry
by Glyn Maxwell
"This is a book for anyone," Glyn Maxwell declares of On Poetry. A guide to the writing of poetry and a defense of the art, it will be especially prized by writers and readers who wish to understand why and how poetic technique matters. When Maxwell states, "With rhyme what matters is the distance between rhymes" or "the line-break is punctuation," he compresses into simple, memorable phrases a great deal of practical wisdom.
In seven chapters whose weird, gnomic titles announce the singularity of the book--"White," "Black," "Form," "Pulse," "Chime," "Space," and "Time"--the poet explores his belief that the greatest verse arises from a harmony of mind and body, and that poetic forms originate in human necessities: breath, heartbeat, footstep, posture. "The sound of form in poetry descended from song, molded by breath, is the sound of that creature yearning to leave a mark. The meter says tick-tock. The rhyme says remember. The whiteness says alone," Maxwell writes. To illustrate his argument, he draws upon personal touchstones such as Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. An experienced teacher, Maxwell also takes us inside the world of the creative writing class, where we learn from the experiences of four aspiring poets.
"You master form you master time," Maxwell says. In this guide to the most ancient and sublime of the realms of literature, Maxwell shares his mastery with us.
Copies
No copies available.
On Poetry
by Glyn Maxwell
“This is a book for anyone,” Glyn Maxwell declares of On Poetry. A guide to the writing of poetry and a defense of the art, it will be especially prized by writers and readers who wish to understand why and how poetic technique matters. When Maxwell states, “With rhyme what matters is the distance between rhymes” or “the line-break is punctuation,” he compresses into simple, memorable phrases a great deal of practical wisdom.
In seven chapters whose weird, gnomic titles announce the singularity of the book―“White,” “Black,” “Form,” “Pulse,” “Chime,” “Space,” and “Time”―the poet explores his belief that the greatest verse arises from a harmony of mind and body, and that poetic forms originate in human necessities: breath, heartbeat, footstep, posture. “The sound of form in poetry descended from song, molded by breath, is the sound of that creature yearning to leave a mark. The meter says tick-tock. The rhyme says remember. The whiteness says alone,” Maxwell writes. To illustrate his argument, he draws upon personal touchstones such as Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. An experienced teacher, Maxwell also takes us inside the world of the creative writing class, where we learn from the experiences of four aspiring poets.
“You master form you master time,” Maxwell says. In this guide to the most ancient and sublime of the realms of literature, Maxwell shares his mastery with us.
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Open City #23: Prose by Poets
by Jim Harrison, Nick Flynn, Jill Bialosky, Wayne Koestenbaum, Glyn Maxwell, Deborah Garrison, Open City Magazine, Rebecca Wolff
Open City continues to present new writing with a daring edge and a youthful glow, appealing to readers who want to know what’s next in contemporary literature. This special issue features fiction, essays, and artworkall by poets. Each piece of prose will be accompanied by a selection of the writer’s poems. Contributors include: Deborah Garrison, Nick Tosches, Honor Moore, Rodney Jack, David Lehman, Jim Harrison, Thurston Moore, David Berman, and Catherine Bowman, Alfred Star Hamilton, and Jerome Badanes.
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One Thousand Nights and Counting: Selected Poems
by Glyn Maxwell
A Boston Globe Best Poetry Book of 2011
The poems of Glyn Maxwell possess a slow, quiet fire. They refrain from grand gestures, from loud proclamations of emotion. Instead, Maxwell unveils these emotions gently, quietly, intricately―like little postcards in a waxed envelope. Each of his poems is Blake's "world in a grain of sand." Maxwell's works reveal very little about their subjects; there are, rather, merely the faintest, well-chosen hints of quotidian life: a man kills a wasp; a man falls in and out of love; a man escapes from an unnamed pursuer. But from these suggestive fragments, it is possible to extrapolate an entire world.
The casual virtuosity that first brought Maxwell great renown is on show throughout the poems collected in One Thousand Nights and Counting. Lyrical or narrative, comic or contemplative, these are profound, resonant explorations of love and fatherhood, of triumph and longing. They will not soon be forgotten.
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