Description
Poetry. "From the island of Manhattan, David M. Katz brings poems of elegy and praise, the gifts of a lifetime that embraces a city in constant flux. A formal master whose blank verse glides effortlessly between the eloquent and the colloquial, Katz invokes the greats—Frost, Stevens, Yeats, and more—but, in poem after poem, it is Katz's own voice that shines most unforgettably. Poems of mid-twentieth-century childhood give way to the struggles of a young journalist and young father, arch commentaries on contemporary culture, and moving meditations on identity and family. His two elegies for the poetic Zen masters Dick Allen and Allen Ginsberg are essential reading. His crown of sonnets, 'On Retirement,' is both a flawless tour-de-force and a tender look at the complicated interactions of memory and loss between father and son, the past and the present. Whether listening to "Rubber Soul" on some long-ago afternoon, hearing the 'three beats of the whippoorwill' in his son's nighttime crying, or walking 34th Street while decades of its history converge with the present moment, David M. Katz remains a poet of rare gifts, a generous spirit whose poems—'those lines in which the living hear the dead'—wrestle with darkness while engaging with life."—NED BALBO
Author Bio
An award-winning financial journalist as well as a poet, David M. Katz was born on New York's Lower East Side and has lived most of his life in Manhattan. IN PRAISE OF MANHATTAN (Dos Madres Press, 2020) is his fourth book of poetry. His previous books are STANZAS ON OZ (Dos Madres Press, 2015) and CLAIMS OF HOME (Dos Madres Press, 2011), and The Warrior in the Forest, published by House of Keys Press. Poems of his have appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, The Hudson Review, The New Criterion, PN Review, The New Republic, The Hopkins Review, Shenandoah, Alabama Literary Review, The Cortland Review, New Verse News, and The Ekphrastic Review. His criticism has appeared in The Hopkins Review, Contemporary Poetry Review, Raintown Review, Jewish Quarterly (UK), and Congress Monthly. A co-host of the Red Harlem Readers series of poetry readings, he is married to the poet Linda Stern.
Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA