In Times Of Danger by Paul Oppenheimer )

In Times Of Danger by Paul Oppenheimer )

Praise for Paul Oppenheimer's In Times of Danger

Paul Oppenheimer's fourth collection of poems presents a love story told almost entirely in brisk, often racy modern sonnets and set against a background of the rural Hudson Valley and New York City-before, during and after the catastrophe of 9/11. I need a form that I did not invent, he writes, tuned by ancient anguish to impart/the strain of modern doubt: an instrument/just right, just now, on which to test my heart. His test turns into a struggle that sweeps up history, elusive love itself, preparations for war and the war in Iraq in more than ninety eerily redemptive, shocking and accomplished renderings of poetry's oldest and still most powerful form.

Lyrical, witty, extravagant and precise, the poems in Paul Oppenheimer's new collection limn the paradoxes of post-millennial urban life in a voice which, while profoundly informed by an indelible plethora of past poetries, is entirely contemporary. Oppenheimer is (incidentally) a master of the sonnet form in all its variations, and these poems, in addition to their other pleasures, allow the reader to eavesdrop on his ongoing colloquy with Donne, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Ronsard, Keats and Yeats. Love, politics and ethics are some of his themes, but he is above all a poet of New York City, caparisoned in the raiment of all its seasons, in its present state of risk, paradox and plenitude.
Marilyn Hacker, National Book Award Winner for Poetry

Streaming through the counterpoint of Paul Oppenheimer's powerful collection In Times of Danger, in his daringly moving sonnets, is beauty-physical and metaphysical. It is woven into an unexpected music of paradox and wit; sophistication and vulnerability; urgency of heart and formidable wisdom; the urban, specifically New York City, and the pastoral. Most stunningly, there is the courage that binds all of these, examining-with rare depth-self and society, the meeting of personal and political. Here is poetry enacting a prelapsarian faith that is never naive, but hopeful while aware of how deeply we have fallen as the events and actions leading to the Iraqi war unfold. 'I never doubt the seven seas in us, ' writes Oppenheimer, replenishng the difficult genre of the love poem against a tragic backdrop, demonstrating with freshness the relevance of the sonnet, and its capacity to express great passion.
Yerra Sugarman, winner PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry

Oppenheimer, Paul: - Paul Oppenheimer is Professor of Comparative Medieval Literature and English at the City University of New York and Visiting Professor at University College London. He has taught in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, and he is the author of poems and short stories.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781933132792
ISBN 10	1933132795
Title	In Times Of Danger
Author	Paul Oppenheimer
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Spuyten Duyvil Publishing
Year published	2013-10-16
Number of pages	98
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.