人妻少妇专区

Written in the aftermath of a cancer diagnosis, Forever is the 人妻少妇专区 English professor鈥檚 sixth book of poems.

James Longenbach had been reading, writing, and teaching poetry for nearly 40 years when, in January 2016, he received an unexpected diagnosis of incurable kidney cancer.

鈥淚t seems like the simplest truth in the world, this understanding that our lives are finite,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 thought I had grappled with that鈥攂ut turns out I had not.鈥�

For Longenbach, the Joseph Henry Gilmore Professor of at the聽, poetry generally鈥攁nd lyric poetry specifically鈥攑roved the necessary medium for contemplating mortality in the years after his diagnosis. The result is Forever (W. W. Norton), Longenbach鈥檚 sixth book of poetry, which was published in June. The collection is divided into three parts, with each part featuring five lyric poems, comparatively short poems usually written in the first person that focus on the speaker鈥檚 emotions.

Bisecting the book is a six-part entry titled 鈥淚n the Village,鈥� after the short story by Elizabeth Bishop. Intentionally or not, Longenbach replicates for his readers the sensation of being caught off-guard by the unexpected. The first two sections of 鈥淚n the Village鈥� showcase the simple words, regular enjambment, multi-line stanzas, intensity of emotion, and first-person perspective that characterize the book so far. But then the third section abruptly shifts to prose poetry with an almost clinical tone:

After a routine ultrasound revealed a fifteen-centimeter mass, my left kidney was removed robotically on February 12. Fifteen months later, nodules were discovered in my lungs and peritoneum. Two subsequent rounds of therapy failed to impede their growth, so I enrolled in a trial, a treatment not yet FDA approved.

鈥淚 had to write a poem that just named, if briefly, what I was going through in a very straightforward, matter-of-fact way,鈥� Longenbach says. 鈥淭hat felt scary, and it made me uneasy.鈥� But his unease was overridden by what he describes as a 鈥渁n impulse to take something very ordinary鈥濃�攊n this case, words鈥斺�渁nd make something out of them.鈥�

Creativity in the face of inevitable loss or death animates many of the entries in Forever. Several recreate through language the personal experiences of falling and being in love (鈥淭wo People,鈥� 鈥淚n the Dolomites鈥�), as well as the fundamentally life-affirming acts of lovemaking, procreating, and childrearing (鈥淪ong of the Sun,鈥� 鈥淔orever鈥�). Other poems explore the mystery and wonder of more commonplace moments of productivity, as when the speaker is making risotto in 鈥淭hursday.鈥�

Yet these instances of creation appear alongside images of destruction鈥攁 sinking Venice, a burning Notre-Dame, a splintering relic, a metastasizing cancer. That contrast highlights the book鈥檚 central concerns with permanence and transience, presence and absence, love and loss.

But Longenbach also makes those concerns explicit through specific verses (鈥淭he city never changes, it鈥檚 never the same.鈥�) and stanzas (鈥淭hey鈥檝e never done this before. / They鈥檝e done it a thousand times.鈥�) throughout the book. Meanwhile, leitmotifs鈥攊ncluding pairs of children, a seaside village, Italian locales and phrases, barking dogs, and Christmastime kisses鈥攕imultaneously inspire recognition in the reader while drawing their attention to an artform that relies on language to recreate, represent, or reconstruct its subject.

鈥淭he knowledge we derive from our repeated experience of a poem is ultimately the knowledge of our own mortality鈥攖he sense not only that we will be but also that we will have been,鈥� Longenbach writes in his latest book of literary criticism, The Lyric Now (University of Chicago Press, 2020). According to the poet and professor, composing the individual poems and then compiling Forever helped him to better appreciate 鈥渉ow the ending of some things makes possible the beginning and the middle of others.鈥�

Experiencing the poems in the book will, he hopes, allow his readers to do the same.

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