The Violence of the Morning: Poems

by Cal Bedient and Calvin Bedient

This innovative new collection of poems by Cal Bedient is Nabokovian in its artifice, its fluency, and its scope--from Kant to Jaqueline Du Pres's Elgar, from Mother Goose to the Upanishads, from poems after the paintings of Corot, Monet, Matisse, and Klee to extended inquiries into the complexities of sexual and other relationships. The poems take up the task of asking what joy is available in the dark and terrifying waves of disease, broken love,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 082032390X
• ISBN13: 9780820323909
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

the violence of the morning

The beautiful work of depth and mere dissection of dissection. Layers and layers of knowledge and perception to create his work of art with words.

Brilliance compounding brilliance

Late in life Calvin Bedient decided to change the trajectory of his career; he's been one of America's finest literary critics for decades, and a few years ago he came out with his first book of poetry. _Candy Necklace_ was both authoritative and innovative, and it doesn't hold a candy to _The Violence of the Morning_.It's a book populated by outlandish acts of language, nonstop creativity, brilliant humor, and powerful mourning. Many people, particularly those who think poems are only worthwhile if their emotional range is limited to grief, will be bothered by Bedient's wit and originality and playfulness. And yet Bedient's broad room can enclose grief masterfully; his two elegies, for his mother and his brother, are among the most devastating I've ever read.For the last few years, American poetry has been undergoing a kind of revolution. Mainstream poetry had set itself guidelines in which every poem had to be plainspoken, unassuming, and bland. Extravagance, beauty, and wildness re-entered our poetry with Lucie Brock-Broido's _Master Letters_, and once that door had been spread so amazingly open, many other extraordinary poets followed. Some might think Bedient is a kind of johnny-come-lately in this field, but it's important to remember that Bedient, as critic, was an early champion of Brock-Broido's work. It could be said that Bedient presided over this movement in American poetry towards sheer deliciousness.This is a book that will last. Its soundtrack includes both laughter and weeping, but the utter exhilaration that comes from reading it will have no sound but delight.