Now in paperback, the winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award
Chronic
Poems
- Winner of the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
Finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry
so many of the best days seem minor forms of nearness
that easily fall among the dropseed: a rind, a left-behind
—from “no picnic”
In these brilliant poems from one of contemporary poetry’s most intriguing, singular voices, D. A. Powell strikes out for the farther territories of love and comes back from those fields with loss, with flowers faded, “blossom blast and dieback.” Chronic describes the flutter and cruelty of erotic encounter, temptation, and bitter heartsickness, but with Powell’s deep lyric beauty and his own brand of dark wit.
that easily fall among the dropseed: a rind, a left-behind
—from “no picnic”
In these brilliant poems from one of contemporary poetry’s most intriguing, singular voices, D. A. Powell strikes out for the farther territories of love and comes back from those fields with loss, with flowers faded, “blossom blast and dieback.” Chronic describes the flutter and cruelty of erotic encounter, temptation, and bitter heartsickness, but with Powell’s deep lyric beauty and his own brand of dark wit.
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About the Author
Credit: Bill Valentine
Praise
- “Wickedly well-tuned work. . . . Chronic is one of those rare collections that moves beautifully between poetry’s inner / outer stereopticon.”—John Freeman, Los Angeles Times
- “To read Chronic for the first time is to marvel at the combination of wild emotion and virtuosic technique. . . . To read Powell for the first time (no matter where you start) is to find a great deal of joy.”—Stephanie Burt, London Review of Books
- “Richly romantic yet never sentimental, Powell’s work in Chronic is often addressed to ‘you’: a friend, a lover, and you, the reader. It’s a lovely, intimate style.”—Entertainment Weekly
- “This fourth collection from Powell is simultaneously an accessible heartbreaker, a rare gem for connoisseurs, a genre-altering breakthrough and a long anticipated follow-up.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
