The Inside of an Apple

by Joshua Beckman

Overview

"If you take a broad squint at our nation's new poets you can find two general strategies: poets who are carrying the torch, and poets who are using it to start fires. And then we have Joshua Beckman. He seems to be doing everything."—Daniel Handler, The Believer

"Beckman . . . does the incredible work of writing poems full of desire, for a world in the midst of radical upheaval."—Publishers Weekly (starred review for Take It)

Joshua Beckman is at his most immediate, attentive, and available in The Inside of an Apple. Beckman's latest collection of sincere, spare poems invites the reader to experience a revelation of consciousness and a generosity of spirit.

Let my still dark soul
be music. A made whistle
floating out a window
arranged.

Some little thing

fell and I picked it up
and up it kept on going.

Eight dead stars

make a sickle,
and the earth
is covered in grass.

Joshua Beckman is the author of nine books, including collections of poetry, translations, and collaborations. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a NYFA fellowship and a Pushcart Prize. He lives in Seattle and New York.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781933517759
Publisher:	Wave Books
Publication date:	09/03/2013
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Joshua Beckman was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He is the author of nine books, including the forthcoming The Inside of an Apple (Wave Books, 2013), Take It, Shake, Your Time Has Come, and two collaborations with Matthew Rohrer: Nice Hat. Thanks. and Adventures While Preaching the Gospel of Beauty. He is an editor at Wave Books and has translated numerous works of poetry and prose, including Micrograms, by Jorge Carrera Andrade, 5 Meters of Poems (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010) by Carlos Oquendo de Amat and Poker (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2008) by Tomaž Šalamun, which was a finalist for the PEN America Poetry in Translation Award. He is also the recipient of numerous other awards, including a NYFA fellowship and a Pushcart Prize. He lives in Seattle and New York.

Table of Contents

[Stars
[I live
bark frost scene
the inside of an apple
Along the river
[Quit &
Silver streamers dazzling winter
[In the air
as russet apples
[I’m not with my
[That being alive
[silvered out night
[flecks
(August 28)
[rain stones curved
[flowers from
[stations formed and made
The Plant
[Yeah, well
[strands of gold
[Being of lambkin mind
Waste & Use
[Being in ways
[confident
[clappers clapping
[moon
[reveling
of Oregon
[light sand
[shell plucked
[starlings
[flower puffs of dust
[junk plums
[Powder’s
[Raise while you can
Daisies are calming
That’s Not What I’d Do
[On 13th street
[Early end of year
first snow
[on a twig
[Crackle crackle
porch light
Sitting on that chair a peg above my head
earth stars
Park hurt calls
How the mountain calmed me down
[Not gloss year candles
[Ocean which I pushed up
full of scarlet
God’s cabin’s a jungle
[Smiling granite
[Couldn’t then see
[Not as in some
madrigal of trashbird
God’s Wicker Basket Furnace
The Curtain
[living real things
[a bit of / combed hair
[tablets
[I saw hearts in Proust
[a hammer flattens
[Grey light shadow
[caution’s loving
[falling terrors of
[hot in my frame
[Lofted cold falls
[Let my still dark soul