En Famille: Poetry by Robert Creeley & Photographs by Elsa Dorfman

by Robert Creeley

Poetry. Photographs. Robert Creeley and Elsa Dorfman bring us the real news of the different ways the word 'family' has been made to leap beyond its lexical meanings. Poet and photographer register how family is being re-envisioned by those who live as individuals within a 'securing center.' Beginning with, and subverting, 'I wandered lonely as a cloud,' William Wordsworth's quintessential Romantic image of the self, Creeley writes a poem whose formal structure, its interlocking, echoing pattern of rhymed quatrains, challenges our assumptions about the legacy of Romantic and Modernist poetry. It is not that their legacy or the family should endure in some rigid manner; it's that they have changed and are changing still -- John Yau. A hardback original, EN FAMILLE includes 22 color photographs.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1887123261
• ISBN13: 9781887123266
• Release Date: November 1999
• Publisher: Granary Books
• Length: 40 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

A Revelation

Here is a wonderful collaboration between two artists. Creeley's poem is more than simply descriptive of Dorfman's photos, portraits which are more than simply illustrative of his words. This compact, hardcover book is to be "read" and reread in an entirely new way. For one whose exposure to poetry has been limited since the end of his formal education, "En Famille" is a real revelation.It is also a great opportunity to obtain a miniature album of Elsa Dorfman's work for one's very own. The photos, featuring faces both famous and less celebrated, those whose troubles may be widely known or only guessed at, really do capture the beauty of the subjects' humanity in ways we may not stop often enough to notice. They are beautifully reproduced on good quality, acid-free paper.

Finally! A superb collection of Dorfman's color portraits!

Dorfman has been making color portraits in her Boston studio for several years, and many great examples of her work are collected here for the first time.This is a book worth waiting for. Dormfan's casual looking though skillfully executed photographs of ordinary people are a wonderful document both for her sitters and those of us who love well done portraits.Here's hoping she will never retire, and that all of us might be fortunate enough to find our way before her lens.