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Graywolf Press

The Salt Ecstasies

Poems
James L. White; With an introduction by Mark Doty
The Salt Ecstasies
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  • “This long-out-of-print, legendary and highly influential book of poetry takes on new meaning from one generation to the next. . . . Forceful, radiant, imagistic.”—The Bloomsbury Review 
James L. White's The Salt Ecstasies--originally published in 1982, shortly after White's untimely death--has earned a reputation for its artful and explicit expression of homosexual love and desire. In this new edition, with an introduction by Mark Doty and previously unpublished works by White, this invaluable poetry is again available--clear, passionate, and hard-earned.

The Salt Ecstasies is a new book in the Graywolf Poetry Re/View Series, edited by Mark Doty, dedicated to bringing essential books of contemporary American poetry back into print.

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ISBN
978-1-55597-561-6
Format
Paperback
Publication Date
Subject
Pages
96
Series
Trim Size
6 x 9
The powerful and influential last poems of an unsung master, now again available, with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Mark Doty

About the Author

James L. White
Credit: Ellen Hawley
James L. White was a classical ballet dancer who later earned two degrees in English Literature from universities in Colorado and Indiana. He lived and taught in New Mexico and Arizona with Navaho people, and then moved to Minnesota where he developed a creative writing program for Chippewa children while working with the Minnesota Writers in Schools. He edited two collections of contemporary Native American writing, and The Salt Ecstasies is the fourth book of his own poetry. In 1978, White was awarded a Bush Foundation Fellowship. He lived in Minneapolis until his death in July, 1981.

 
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Mark Doty
Credit: Star Black
Mark Doty is the author of The Art of Description: World into Word and eight collections of poetry, including Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, which won the National Book Award. He is also the author of four works of prose nonfiction, including the memoir Heaven’s Coast, which received the PEN/Martha Albrand Award. He teaches at Rutgers University and lives in New York.
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Praise

  • “The Salt Ecstasies is really just a beautiful book of poetry, filled with blindingly fierce imagery and destructively skillful writing, but it’s most importantly an honest book, its poems written straight from White’s heart and from his gut.”—The Rumpus
  • “James L. White [is] an individual regarded by many poetic critics as an unsung hero of poetry. . . . [and] The Salt Ecstasies is a fine collection for any hardcore poetry lover.”—The Midwest Book Review
  • “[The Salt Ecstasies are] the most candid, authentic, and compelling poems about American eros that I have ever read. . . . Perhaps their most enduring quality is their ability to express universal truths of sexual intimacy . . . in ways that resonate for readers gay and straight alike.”—Emprise Review
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