Foreign Tales of Exemplum and Woe Poems J C Ellefson 9781937677824 Books
Download As PDF : Foreign Tales of Exemplum and Woe Poems J C Ellefson 9781937677824 Books
Over the years, stanza by stanza, Jim Ellefson has made himself the Poet Laureate of the Wondrous. Like a street preacher – not the fake kind but the undeniably enlightened – his voice suddenly lays hold of you, and only eventually are you aware that you’ve stopped in your tracks. And inevitably the luster of his human insights follows you as you walk away. But this collection is something truly special, even for Ellefson. Only the bravest artists work so openly, and so triumphantly, with the obscure, the ineffable. “Such as I am,” one of his characters confesses, “I only felt strange,” and it’s as good a description as any for what will happen to you as you settle in with Foreign Tales of Exemplum. Set in locations across the globe, these poems are out to translate interactions that defy translation, even as the foreign landscapes themselves becomes eerily familiar. Here you’ll find the world entire – teeming humanity is all here, every one of us – but not for the peckish reader merely looking to snack. This is an honest-to-God feast, a groaning board. Come very hungry. Plan to stay very late. — Philip Baruth, author of The X President and The Brothers Boswell
Foreign Tales of Exemplum and Woe Poems J C Ellefson 9781937677824 Books
A terrific collection of his work.Product details
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Tags : Foreign Tales of Exemplum and Woe: Poems [J C Ellefson] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Over the years, stanza by stanza, Jim Ellefson has made himself the Poet Laureate of the Wondrous. Like a street preacher – not the fake kind but the undeniably enlightened – his voice suddenly lays hold of you,J C Ellefson,Foreign Tales of Exemplum and Woe: Poems,Fomite,1937677826,American - General,POETRY American General,Poetry,Poetry General
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Foreign Tales of Exemplum and Woe Poems J C Ellefson 9781937677824 Books Reviews
Nothing short of fabulous.
Ellefson is an exceptional poet with profound insight, and a kind, unique, vivid, and honest view of the world. I'm a better writer having read and listened to his work, and a better person having learned from him.
I was feeling stale and stifled in my writing, and buying this book was my way of reigniting that spark.
JC Ellefson, according to the bio on his debut collection, Foreign Tales of Exemplum and Woe, has taught abroad in China and the Azores, and these poems are the compassionate and often humorous stories of the people he met there. “So many roads,” he says, “so many lives to lead.” In poems filled with irony, humor, and deeply human insights, his Whitman-like voice celebrates the expatriate in all of us. He opens up exotic yet ominous landscapes (night rain and trash blow in the headlights); he laments the woes of its denizens (a man sits “silently and nods, but if he were to speak, the deep/regret in his voice would cloud above him.” And he hails “all the love wrapped around itself/inside the windows above the dark/street.”
The poems are nostalgic, too. In a lyrical poem to his mother on his 38th birthday, he thinks of words I might say to you if you were/to return—words that could define you, or us—/words that could coerce you to stay for just/a moment, to take a breath, a cup/of tea, or even a small piece of conversation that could last us both/until our days run back together.
In the final poem, “The Expatriate returns to Dream Street” we feel with the poet the joy and relief of returning to the old life again “Hello/in there. It’s me. Let me in. And I’m home.” We welcome him back and thank him for an exhilarating journey. Ellefson’s is a startlingly original, passionate voice that makes us want to reopen the book and settle back for a second, and third reading.
A terrific collection of his work.
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