Natal Command

by Peter Sacks

Overview

Peter Sacks draws upon his life as an expatriate as well as upon his early years in South Africa, including his time spent in the military, to create a remarkably powerful book of poetry. At turns meditative and narrative, Sacks is unafraid to lay bare in vivid imagery his sense of both personal and historical losses, and his commitment to the works of mourning and of cultural repair. Even the love poems emerge from this book with the impress of both bittersweet aspiration and regret.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226733425
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	12/22/1997
Series:	Phoenix Poets
Edition description:	1
Pages:	87
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Peter Sacks is the author of two previous collections of poems, In These Mountains and Promised Lands, and of the acclaimed critical work The English Elegy. He is professor of English at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
The Gate
Natal Command
The Ridge
Night Ferry
May Eve
The Thorn
For Iris Hayter
Nuttall Gardens
Century
Kronos
Night Duty
Words
Judas Peak
Truce
Across the Field
Larkin
Drakensberg
Kein Ander
Only the Swimmer
The Reins
The Course
Eclipse
On the Path
The Rock
The Trench
The Swimmer
Blue Star
Notes

Editorial Reviews

These are peoms of hopelessness, of despair, yet they are restorative in their waves of clear interrogative light, their keen and moving exactitude. -- New York Times Book Review

Carol Muske