Items related to See Me Improving (Lannan Literary Selections)
Travis Nichols is a young poet and novelist who invites readers into a world of relationships gone strange. In his poems, everyday human behaviors become fraught with extraordinary significance. It's a delicate balance of orchestration and improvisation—both dizzying and oddly comforting. The poems, thick with vibrant language and semantic play, hint at a Rimbaudian derangement of the senses while being hyper-alert and completely alive.
All my life I've felt destined
not for the greatness of my heroes
but the goodness of their followers.
I knew, even when I found a piece
of tooth in my Sausage McMuffin,
I would surmount the poverty
and dullness of my youth.
I knew neither my poverty nor my youth
would be significant enough
to attract attention,
only simple enough
to graft onto the great biographies.
Even when I felt uncommon and angry enough
to steal balloons from the drug store
and spit red paintballs through a peashooter
at people making out in the park I knew
I was no Billy the Kid . . .
Travis Nichols is an editor at the Poetry Foundation. He is the author of Iowa, a collection of poems, and Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder (Coffee House Press), a novel. He edits the online magazine Weird Deer and regularly contributes to The Believer, Paste, and The Stranger. He lives in Chicago.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Travis Nichols: Travis Nichols is an editor at the Poetry Foundation. He is the author of Iowa, a collection of poems, and Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder, a novel. He edits the online magazine Weird Deer, and regularly contributes to The Believer, Paste, and The Stranger. His poetry has appeared in a wide range of magazines and journals, such as the Boston Review, Crowd, Lungfull!, and Denver Quarterly. He lives in Chicago.
From Publishers Weekly:
This hip and funny second collection of poems from Nichols (Iowa) looks, with a tender heart, mostly at domestic life, occasionally lifting its gaze toward the larger contemporary American scene. Nichols's speaker is, foremost, humbled by circumstances big and small: "All my life I've felt destined/ not for the greatness of my heroes/ but the goodness of their followers." He looks with a kind of gentle admiration on most things, from the local Bruegger's Bagels to the beloved, to whom tribute is paid in the title sequence: "I will buy orange roses for you,/ and you will buy an orange book for me,/ and this evening we will leave them both/ in the cold house with the furry cat,/ so we can have a code orange night." Slight in-jokes like this are sprinkled throughout, though most readers will find these plainspoken, free verse poems friendly and easy to grasp. Fans of poets like Matthew Zapruder will find much to like in this world in which "Poetry is an ovary with an eyeball in it." (Dec.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
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- PublisherCopper Canyon Press
- Publication date2010
- ISBN 10 1556593120
- ISBN 13 9781556593123
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages80
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See Me Improving (Lannan Literary Selections) by Nichols, Travis [Paperback ]
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ISBN 13: 9781556593123
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See Me Improving (Paperback)
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Copper Canyon Press,U.S.
(2011)
ISBN 10: 1556593120
ISBN 13: 9781556593123
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Travis Nichols is a young poet and novelist who invites readers into a world of relationships gone strange. In his poems, everyday human behaviors become fraught with extraordinary significance. It's a delicate balance of orchestration and improvisationboth dizzying and oddly comforting. The poems, thick with vibrant language and semantic play, hint at a Rimbaudian derangement of the senses while being hyper-alert and completely alive.All my life I've felt destinednot for the greatness of my heroesbut the goodness of their followers.I knew, even when I found a pieceof tooth in my Sausage McMuffin,I would surmount the povertyand dullness of my youth.I knew neither my poverty nor my youthwould be significant enoughto attract attention,only simple enoughto graft onto the great biographies.Even when I felt uncommon and angry enoughto steal balloons from the drug storeand spit red paintballs through a peashooterat people making out in the park I knewI was no Billy the Kid . . .Travis Nichols is an editor at the Poetry Foundation. He is the author of Iowa, a collection of poems, and Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder (Coffee House Press), a novel. He edits the online magazine Weird Deer and regularly contributes to The Believer, Paste, and The Stranger. He lives in Chicago. If the cast of Peanuts were on a drunken boat, their cries for help would resemble poems of Travis Nichols. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9781556593123
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