Lethal Frequencies

by James Galvin

Overview

A winner of the National Poetry Series and author of the prose classic, The Meadow (Holt, 1992), James Galvin writes poetry that is inspired by the often harsh sub-rural landscape of southwestern Wyoming where Galvin has spent most of the past decade building a log home.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781556590696
Publisher:	Copper Canyon Press
Publication date:	01/01/1994
Series:	National Poetry Series
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.20(d)

About the Author

James Galvin is both a rancher in Wyoming and on the permanent faculty at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He is the author of six books of poems, an acclaimed memoir The Meadow, and a novel.

Editorial Reviews

Prominent chronicler of the West, Galvin (Elements) again employs a spare style to depict the tough landscapes of his Wyoming home and his unsentimental affection for the people who live there. No ``cowboy poet,'' Galvin refuses to romanticize the West: ``The wind, when it finds me, bears no trace/ Of sage-sweet horse smell, no color black,/ No softness of muzzle of the/ Mare, her mane curving and lifting,/ Where she graces the horizon down to nothing.'' The consistent, tough-minded sensibility (which also marked his 1992 novel, The Meadow) of these poems is lit by flashes of humor (``Statistics show that/ One in every five/ Women/ Is essential to my survival''). The real surprise of this volume is ``The Sacral Dreams of Ramon Fernandez,'' an imaginative speculation about the life of a real-life European critic mentioned in Wallace Stevens's ``The Idea of Order at Key West.'' Stripped of the familiar wilderness locales, Galvin's ability to summon up another's inner world takes center stage. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Galvin has created a certain robust mystique about himself-if the biography matters-and these poems reflect certain qualities of robust labor. The poems show all their work, some having a finished presence, others having been worked to death. Occasionally, this results in delightful strangeness-"The Mind assumes The Position/Under a cocaine moon"-but all too often there is dull predictability: "There is no word in English for the gap/Between the look of lightning and its clap." It's as though Galvin's ears are still ringing from the chainsaw and he can't hear his own voice. Libraries may do better with his earlier books (e.g., Elements, Copper Canyon Pr., 1988) or his prose narrative The Meadow (Holt, 1992). Not recommended.-Steven R. Ellis, Brooklyn P.L.

Library Journal