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Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Near-Earth Object

Near-Earth Object

Paperback

General Poetry

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN13: 9798989233311
Publisher: Unbound Edition Press
Published: Apr 23 2024
Pages: 116
Weight: 0.45
Height: 0.40 Width: 6.40 Depth: 8.40
Language: English

In the poems of Near-Earth Object, John Shoptaw explores the interactions, sometimes dark and sometimes joyful, between humans and the non-human natural world. Resisting the human exceptionalism that in its many forms blocks our imaginative access to the world, Shoptaw entertains the perspectives of a host of others: a cricket, a bat, a nuthatch, a carnival bear, a tree's shade, cherubim, an asteroid, and -- in the long poem Whoa! (an allegory of climate change based on the myth of Phaethon) -- Earth herself. His descriptions bring to bear knowledge drawn from many sources (life and physical sciences, poetry, philosophy, conversations) as well as his own attentive experience of the world (birds at the feeder, creek-side fox squirrels, Pacific harbor seals). Along with these shifting viewpoints and scales, the poems assume various forms: anaphoric verse, poulter's measure, a seasonal quartina, a shaped poem. Everywhere Shoptaw attends to the musical contours and momentums of his phrases, lines, sentences and stanzas.

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