Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Quartet for J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Poem

Quartet for J. Robert Oppenheimer: A Poem

Cherry, Kelly

Paperback

Series: Sea Cliff Fund

General Poetry

Publisher Price: $24.95

ISBN10: 0807165042
ISBN13: 9780807165041
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: Feb 1 2017
Pages: 160
Weight: 0.60
Height: 0.30 Width: 6.05 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

Robert Oppenheimer was a complex human being. No biography yet written comes even close to this elegant skein of poems in capturing his life and character.--Richard Rhodes, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb

Quartet for J. Robert Oppenheimer records in poetry the life and times of one of America's best-known scientists, the father of the atomic bomb who later lobbied for containment of nuclear weaponry. In brief, elegant stanzas, Kelly Cherry examines Oppenheimer's inspirations, dreams, and values, visiting the events, places, and people that inspired him or led him to despair. She finds his place among scientists of his own time, such as Alan Turing and Albert Einstein, as well as his connections with historical and mythological figures from John Donne to Persephone.

Of course he had blood on his hands. Who did not? says Cherry, in The Nature of War. Again and again in the course of this remarkable poem, Cherry's narration of Oppenheimer's life compels her readers to contemplate the vagaries of science, guilt, and our responsibilities to each other.

Quartet for J. Robert Oppenheimer is a book length poem in which the architect of the atom bomb comes to embody America and the West's Faustian control of nature and the paradoxical helplessness and guilt which that control entailed. Oppenheim is marvelous, complicated, flawed and admirable character, and these poems read like chapters in a novel without in any way abandoning the intensities of feeling and image or delight in language we associate with lyric poetry. A terrific achievement and a compelling read.--Alan Shapiro, author of Life Pig and Reel to Reel

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