March Book

Last updated

March Book is the debut book of poetry by American poet Jesse Ball . The book was published in April 2004 by Grove Press. [1] It was critically acclaimed and it helped to build the foundation for Ball's subsequent reputation as a poet.[ citation needed ]

Contents

March Book
March Book.jpg
Author Jesse Ball
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Published2004 (Grove Books)
Pages103 Pages
ISBN 978-0-8021-4122-4

Critical reception

DeSales Harrison in Boston Review wrote "what remains to be established in Ball’s work is a sense of what responsibilities his luminous, arresting, uncanny dreamscapes call the reader toward". [2]

The Irish poet Eamon Grennan provides the following endorsement on the back cover of the first edition of March Book:

"Various in subject matter, consistent in their control of voice, at home in memory, fable, parable, the poems in March Book add up to a mature, surprising and extraordinarily lively first collection. Jesse Ball's imagination is at once mordant and playful, inhabiting and populating its world with a mixture of enigmatic observation and direct speech. He stands where the true poet should, in his properly vulnerable position, his motto: 'we are near a truth and daren't speak.' Like a fractured prism, his poems dissolve the self into other voices and remote situations, each one a glittering shard of some unspoken truth that offers itself 'resolute outside the haze of his own life.' There is, however, nothing hazy about the work, informed as it is by a verbally honed, sharply pointed steadiness of purpose. 'In these unruly days,' he says in one poem, 'even prayer may be true.' Combating unruliness with their curious mixture of surprise and formal grace, the poems of March Book insist on their own kind of truth, and are their own kind of oddly angled prayer." [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sylvia Plath</span> American poet and writer (1932–1963)

Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965), and The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide in 1963. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honour posthumously.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bliss Carman</span> Canadian poet

William Bliss Carman was a Canadian poet who lived most of his life in the United States, where he achieved international fame. He was acclaimed as Canada's poet laureate during his later years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Lowell</span> American poet (1917–1977)

Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the Mayflower. His family, past and present, were important subjects in his poetry. Growing up in Boston also informed his poems, which were frequently set in Boston and the New England region. The literary scholar Paula Hayes believes that Lowell mythologized New England, particularly in his early work.

Tom Pickard is a poet, and documentary film maker who was an important initiator of the movement known as the British Poetry Revival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Pinsky</span> American poet, editor, literary critic, academic

Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. He was the first United States Poet Laureate to serve three terms. Recognized worldwide, Pinsky's work has earned numerous accolades. Pinsky is a professor of English and creative writing in the graduate writing program at Boston University. In 2015 the university named him a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor, the highest honor bestowed on senior faculty members who are actively involved in teaching, research, scholarship, and university civic life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marko Marulić</span> Croatian national poet and European humanist

Marko Marulić Splićanin, was a Croatian poet, lawyer, judge, and Renaissance humanist who coined the term "psychology". He is the national poet of Croatia. According to George J. Gutsche, Marulic's epic poem Judita "is the first long poem in Croatian", and "gives Marulić a position in his own literature comparable to Dante in Italian literature." Furthermore, Marulić's Latin poetry is of such high quality that his contemporaries dubbed him "The Christian Virgil."

Eamon JR Grennan is an Irish poet born in Dublin, Ireland. He attended University College Dublin where he completed a BA 1963 and an MA 1964. He has lived in the United States, except for brief periods, since 1964. He was the Dexter M. Ferry Jr. Professor of English at Vassar College until his retirement in 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Lamantia</span> American poet

Philip Lamantia was an American poet, writer and lecturer. His poetry incorporated stylistic experimentation and transgressive themes, and has been regarded as surrealist and visionary, contributing to the literature of the Beat Generation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jim Harrison</span> American poet, novelist, and essayist (1937 – 2016)

James Harrison was an American poet, novelist, and essayist. He was a prolific and versatile writer publishing over three dozen books in several genres including poetry, fiction, nonfiction, children's literature, and memoir. He wrote screenplays, book reviews, literary criticism, and published essays on food, travel, and sport. Harrison indicated that, of all his writing, his poetry meant the most to him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Hartnett</span> Irish poet, known for work in English and Irish languages

Michael Hartnett was an Irish poet who wrote in both English and Irish. He was one of the most significant voices in late 20th-century Irish writing and has been called "Munster's de facto poet laureate".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesse Ball</span> American novelist and poet

Jesse Ball is an American novelist and poet. He has published novels, volumes of poetry, short stories, and drawings. His works are distinguished by the use of a spare style and have been compared to those of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Derek Mahon</span> Irish poet (1941–2020)

Norman Derek Mahon was an Irish poet. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland but lived in a number of cities around the world. At his death it was noted that his, "influence in the Irish poetry community, literary world and society at large, and his legacy, is immense". President of Ireland Michael D Higgins said of Mahon; "he shared with his northern peers the capacity to link the classical and the contemporary but he brought also an edge that was unsparing of cruelty and wickedness."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonnet 105</span> Poem by William Shakespeare

Sonnet 105 is one of 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. It is a member of the Fair Youth sequence, in which the poet expresses his love towards a young man.

Religious Musings was composed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1794 and finished by 1796. It is one of his first poems of critical merit and contains many of his early feelings about religion and politics.

<i>Human Chain</i> (poetry collection) 2010 book by Seamus Heaney

Human Chain is the twelfth and final poetry collection by Seamus Heaney. It was first published in 2010 by the Faber and Faber.

"September 1913" is a poem by W. B. Yeats. The poem was written midway through his life as a highly reflective poem which is rooted within the turbulent past. Most notably, the poem provides insight into Yeats' detestation of the middle classes whilst also glorifying figures such as John O'Leary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A Song for Simeon</span> Poem by T.S. Eliot

"A Song for Simeon" is a 37-line poem written in 1928 by American-English poet T. S. Eliot (1888–1965). It is one of five poems that Eliot contributed to the Ariel Poems series of 38 pamphlets by several authors published by Faber and Gwyer. "A Song for Simeon" was the sixteenth in the series and included an illustration by avant garde artist Edward McKnight Kauffer. The poems, including "A Song for Simeon", were later published in both the 1936 and 1963 editions of Eliot's collected poems.

"A Writer's Prayer" is an English poem by the Indian poet and renowned spiritual healer Tarun Cherian. Cherian has had written many a poems beforehand with this one being his best work. A Writers Prayer won Second Prize in the Fifth All India Poetry Competition conducted by The Poetry Society (India) in 1993. The poem was his first major award-winning work. This poem was written by him in tribute to his wife Celia Cherian. Tarun eventually went on to make a mark in mysticism, spirituality and visual art.

<i>Poems</i> (Tennyson, 1842) Anthology by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Poems, by Alfred Tennyson, was a two-volume 1842 collection in which new poems and reworked older ones were printed in separate volumes. It includes some of Tennyson's finest and best-loved poems, such as Mariana, The Lady of Shalott, The Palace of Art, The Lotos Eaters, Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Two Voices, Sir Galahad, and Break, Break, Break. It helped to establish his reputation as one of the greatest poets of his time.

<i>Evering Road</i> 2021 studio album by Tom Grennan

Evering Road is the second studio album by British singer-songwriter Tom Grennan, released on 12 March 2021 through Insanity Records. It was supported by the singles "This Is the Place" and "Little Bit of Love", while the deluxe edition includes the single "Let's Go Home Together" with Ella Henderson. The album debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, becoming Grennan's first chart-topping effort.

References

  1. "March Book". Grove Atlantic. Retrieved 2024-03-16.
  2. Harrison, DeSales (2005-02-01). "Strange Relations". Boston Review. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
  3. Grennan, Eamon (2004). "Cover endorsement". March Book, by Jesse Ball (1st ed.). New York: Grove Press. ISBN   978-0-8021-4122-4.