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Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie

Winner of the 2010 Akron Poetry Prize, Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie is a "tender anti-epic, a grunge-tinged love song to America's benighted postindustrial heartland. Harmon's Poughkeepsie shimmers just beyond the borders of banal recognition. 'If you're not part of the problem, / you're part of the lengthening / tragedy,' Harmon writes in an introductory pastoral, seeking out 'the stray / detours and workarounds of the secret / city inside the more obvious one... on the outskirts of the absurd / attention to the material life.' Poughkeepsie is that city of the heart where no one can look at anyone else 'alone,' where 'the noise of beauty' is a cop's bullet polishing off a 'traffic-struck doe,' where 'five dollars takes you anywhere in this town / except out of it.'" —G.C. Waldrep, Judge of the 2010 Akron Poetry Prize

  • Format
  • paperback
  • Pages
  • 93
  • Language
  • english
  • ISBN
  • 9781931968928
  • Genres
  • poetry
  • Release date
  • 2011