Description
Poetry. THE REFUSAL OF SUITORS draws on Penelope and her loom to engage the repetitions and variations of contemporary urban life. Through varying styles, voices, and layouts, these poems move collectively with a sonic force, the "pure acoustics of declaratives," through "a night that begins / with our falling asleep." With a visionary amalgam of phenomenon and symbol, in poems that range from long-lined, romantic odes to tight, pictorial meditations akin to classical Asian poetry, Yamaguchi offers a rich entrée into the contemporary as it sits atop a natural and cultural history. From the jocular to the reposed to the amorous to the despondent - his voice is never satisfied, relishing the "sweet chorea of the longest day."
Author Bio
Ryo Yamaguchi has an MFA from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His poems have appeared in the The Iowa Review, American Letters & Commentary, and Tin House, among other places. He lives in Chicago, where he works at the University of Chicago Press.
Author City: CHICAGO, IL USA