The Mind Has Cliffs of Fall: Poetry at the Extremes of Feeling

Fiction & Literature, Poetry, Anthologies
Cover of the book The Mind Has Cliffs of Fall: Poetry at the Extremes of Feeling by Robert Pinsky, W. W. Norton & Company
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Robert Pinsky ISBN: 9781324001799
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Publication: October 22, 2019
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company Language: English
Author: Robert Pinsky
ISBN: 9781324001799
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication: October 22, 2019
Imprint: W. W. Norton & Company
Language: English

A bold new anthology of poems that contend with the most extreme human emotions, from former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky.

Despair, mania, rage, guilt, derangement, fantasy: poetry is our most intimate, personal source for the urgency of these experiences. Poems get under our skin; they engage with the balm, and the sting, of understanding. In The Mind Has Cliffs of Fall—its title inspired by a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem—acclaimed poet Robert Pinsky gives us more than 130 poems that explore emotion at its most expansive, distinct, and profound.

With seven illuminating chapters and succinct headnotes for each poem, Pinsky leads us through the book’s sweeping historical range. Each chapter, with contents chronologically presented from Shakespeare to Terrance Hayes, Dante to Patricia Lockwood, shows the persistence and variation in our states of mind. “The Sleep of Reason” explores sanity and the imagination, moving from William Cowper’s “Lines Written During a Time of Insanity” to Nicole Sealey’s “a violence.” “Grief” includes Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs last in the Door-yard Bloom’d” and Marie Howe’s “What the Living Do,” and “Manic Laughter” highlights both Lewis Carroll and Martín Espada. Each poem reveals something new about the vastness of human emotion; taken together they offer a sweeping ode to the power of poetry.

Guided by “our finest living example of [the American civic poet]” (New York Times), The Mind Has Cliffs of Fall demonstrates how extreme feelings can be complementary and contradicting, and how poetry is not just an expression of emotion, but emotion itself.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

A bold new anthology of poems that contend with the most extreme human emotions, from former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky.

Despair, mania, rage, guilt, derangement, fantasy: poetry is our most intimate, personal source for the urgency of these experiences. Poems get under our skin; they engage with the balm, and the sting, of understanding. In The Mind Has Cliffs of Fall—its title inspired by a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem—acclaimed poet Robert Pinsky gives us more than 130 poems that explore emotion at its most expansive, distinct, and profound.

With seven illuminating chapters and succinct headnotes for each poem, Pinsky leads us through the book’s sweeping historical range. Each chapter, with contents chronologically presented from Shakespeare to Terrance Hayes, Dante to Patricia Lockwood, shows the persistence and variation in our states of mind. “The Sleep of Reason” explores sanity and the imagination, moving from William Cowper’s “Lines Written During a Time of Insanity” to Nicole Sealey’s “a violence.” “Grief” includes Walt Whitman’s “When Lilacs last in the Door-yard Bloom’d” and Marie Howe’s “What the Living Do,” and “Manic Laughter” highlights both Lewis Carroll and Martín Espada. Each poem reveals something new about the vastness of human emotion; taken together they offer a sweeping ode to the power of poetry.

Guided by “our finest living example of [the American civic poet]” (New York Times), The Mind Has Cliffs of Fall demonstrates how extreme feelings can be complementary and contradicting, and how poetry is not just an expression of emotion, but emotion itself.

More books from W. W. Norton & Company

Cover of the book Nebraska: A History by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book Parenting the Whole Child: A Holistic Child Psychiatrist Offers Practical Wisdom on Behavior, Brain Health, Nutrition, Exercise, Family Life, Peer Relationships, School Life, Trauma, Medication, and More . . . by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book Between Angels by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book Once Upon a River: A Novel by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book Imposture: A Novel by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book The Tale of Genji (unabridged) by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book Your Brain Is a Time Machine: The Neuroscience and Physics of Time by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book The Alps: A Human History from Hannibal to Heidi and Beyond by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book The Inevitable: Contemporary Writers Confront Death by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book The Tragedy of Great Power Politics by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book The Holocaust on Trial by Robert Pinsky
Cover of the book Team Human by Robert Pinsky
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy