Shadowing the Ground Shadowing the Ground Shadowing the Ground Shadowing the Ground Shadowing the Gr

by David Ignatow

Book Overview

A celebrated poet turns his awe of death to a heightened awareness of life.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0819521957
• ISBN13: 9780819521958
• Release Date: June 1991
• Publisher: Wesleyan
• Length: 80 Pages

Customer Reviews

Reviewing and Rmembering

I had the honor and pleasure of working with David Ignatow in his poetry workshop classes at the 92ed St. Y in Manhattan. That was in 1980-81. Now, twenty years since I worked with him, I read these poems from SHADOWING THE GROUND with even greater care and tenderness than when I first read them in 1991.With David's death, these poems that shadow death, take on an added poignancy. By their very nature they grieve for all of us and for his own passing on. This grief is evoked from the reader and from the deceased poet himself. In these poems we feel his pallpable saddness in realizing that his life is moving into its last years. This book, although not his last before his death, stands as a farewell journal in which he shares with great honesty the perspective of entering a time in life in which it is nearly impossible not to deal with one's own impending death - even if there are some years ahead.David Ignatow accomplishes this task with the same honest tenderness and quiet humor I experienced in him as a teacher. I also find much sadness in these poems and even moments of cynicism. But when one loves life, it is sad to contemplate losing it. And if a person lives long enough, he or she will see many go first and feel the loss. David touches on all of this in his poems, and there wells up pains from the past, disappointments, regrets, embarassments at the indignities of getting old, he spares nothing in this testimony to living and coping in the shadow of death. But, and this is the greatest value of these poems, he cleans his house of grief with grief. He scours himself with it until he brings you with him to a place of growth and philosophical understanding. This impacts the reader powerfully, and puts joy back in place alongside sadness:"I live with my contradictions intact, seeking transcendence but loving bread. I shrug at both and from behind the summer screen I look out upon the dark, knowing death as one form of transcendence, but so is life."David was one of my mentors. He remains so.

Excellent Collection of Poetry dealing with Death

This collection of poetry by Ignatow deals with issues of death. He explores the different relationships he has had in his life through his work and also explores what the afterlife will be like. Highly recommend.