Always Alwaysland: New Poems

by Stanley Moss

Overview

A new collection from the great American poet in his 96th year.

Yea, though he walks through a certain valley, Stanley Moss has written Always Alwaysland in his 94th, 95th, and 96th years, a book of songs, devotion, beautiful, painful, useful truths, some work songs, spirituals, grand opera, hymns, chants to God and no God. After all, heartbeat is just versification. He stands alone among American poets. (In one poem that is political, Christ comes back to Earth, is lynched for singing Amazing Grace outside a white church). Read this book, take a chance, change your life for the better for the hell of it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781644212028
Publisher:	Seven Stories Press
Publication date:	06/28/2022
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

STANLEY MOSS was born in Woodhaven, Queens in 1925. He started writing poetry eighty-eight years ago. He enlisted in the US Navy when he was seventeen. He was educated at Trinity College and Yale University. He worked as an editor at New Directions, New American Library, Book Week and New American Review. He taught English in Barcelona and Rome and worked at Botteghe Oscure. In 1977, he founded Sheep Meadow Press, a nonprofit publishing company that publishes poetry and belles lettres. He is translated into German by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, into Chinese by Fu Hao, and into Spanish by Valerie Mejer. He makes his living as a private art dealer, largely in Spanish and Italian Old Masters. He lives on a farm in Clinton Corners, New York.

Table of Contents

Part 1 Good Troubles

A Little Italian Music 15

The Fine Art of California Forest Fires 16

I Toast Times Kindness 17

I Leap for Joy 18

The Ocean Slaps My Face 20

Yes, You Can Say About Me 22

Just After a Dream 23

A Book is Like a Tree 25

I'm Still Here 27

Sunrise, I Am Inclined to Think 30

Marjorie Berlow's Birthday 32

Postcard to Luisa 36

There is Secret Meaning in Rhyme 37

Poem for No Reason 38

Some Words for All Occasions 39

Part 2 Differences

In Memory of Lord Grey Gowrie 43

Elegy for Grey Gowrie 45

Differences 47

Requiem 49

I Had Not Yet Heard of the Coffin Tax 51

Spoon 52

Part 3 Boosters

A Booster, I Hope 57

A Letter From Stanley to Seneca 59

After Reading a Book of Unexpected Metaphors 61

A Capricho 63

Arithmetic 66

Part 4 Compass

I Live in Debtors' Prison 71

A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme 72

The History of Peanut Butter 75

My Left Eye Has Memory 77

I See in My Notebook 79

Garbage 80

Tarrytown, Barrytown 83

Black 85

Celebration for Willis 87

Thanks to a Condor 91

So So Machine 93

A Mystical Reason 93

No Name 94

Alas, My Compass 97

Part 5 Not Yet

Not Yet 103

Preface for Not Yet 104

Spring 2021 107

Pratfall 111

Fact Song 114

To Alexander Who Wanted to Be a Cosmologist 115

To Alexander Fu on His 18th Birthday 116

My History of Laughter 118

Dog Sonnet 123

Detour 124

Haiku 126

A Little Afternoon Music 127

Little Song 129

Thanksgiving, 2020 130

The Great God Is 132

Some Words for T.R. Hummer 134

Whim 136

Part 6 A Smiling Understanding

But 139

A Smiling Understanding 140

A Prayer to No God for Ilhan Comak 141

Year 143

Preface II 146

Cleaning Up 147

Looney Tune 149

I'm Sorry 153

After Receiving a Letter 154

I Write to Be Read Out Loud 155

I Miss Naomi Etienne 156

A Rum Cocktail 157

The Inconsequential, a Paper Napkin 158

The Legend of Self 2021 160

Cake Mistake 163

Disappearance 164

Happy 55^th Birthday to Angel, from Stanley 166

Another Birthday Poem, Written When Angel was Almost a Day Older 168

A Show 170

Truth or Consequences 171

A Charming Story 174

I Don't Trust Alarm Clocks 176

Eye 178

Abortion 180

Zoopie 181

A Butterfly With Child 182

A Cup of Tea 183

A Scream 184

Murder 185

My Heart's Cousin 188

Numbers 189

Trick 190

Reflections 191

The Goddamn Truth 193

Life is a William 194

Gods of Snow, It's Been Snowing All Day 196

I Don't Celebrate the Body Today 199

I Speak While Others Sleep 203

Today I Play Ring Around the Rosie 204

For Don Schwartz and Greg Miller who Dine Together on Anglican and Catholic Christmas Pudding 206

Barbershop Conversation 209

I Praise Scientists 210

A Fable: Christ's Eagle Fathered Eagles 211

Ode to Opposites 214

If Someone Makes Love Anywhere on Earth 216

Victory 219

Zoom Call to Andrei Voznesensky 221

The Ferryman 224

Angry Manifesto 227

Editorial Reviews

"In Always Alwaysland it seems each poem has been searching for a master architect and wordsmith with deep feeling and practice to say it right. The profound and mischievous topics seem to be saying to a foreboding modern reality that Stanley Moss, a mature poet who dares to get the questions and the answers right, that the masterplan engages only true feeling in a state of playful wisdom." 
—Yusef Komunyakaa

From the Publisher