The Nick of Time

A philosophical tour de force melding astrophysics and grief by the American maestra of the prose poem

“If memory serves, it was five years ago that yours began to refuse,” Rosmarie Waldrop writes to her husband in The Nick of Time. “Does it feel like crossing from an open field into the woods, the sunlight suddenly switched off? Or like a roof without edge or frame, pushed sideways in time?” Ten years in the making, Waldrop’s phenomenally beautiful new collection explores the felt nature of existence as well as gravity and velocity, the second hemisphere of time, mortality and aging, language and immigration, a Chinese primer, the artist Hannah Höch, and dwarf stars. Of one sequence, “White Is a Color,” first published as a chapbook, the Irish poet Billy Mills wrote, “In what must be less than 1000 words, Waldrop says more about the human condition and how we explore it through words than most of us would manage in a thousand pages.” Love blooms in the cut, in the gap, in the nick between memory and thought, sentence and experience. Like the late work of Cézanne, Waldrop’s art has found a new way of seeing and thinking that “vibrates on multiple registers through endless, restless exploration” (citation for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize).
1138660460
The Nick of Time

A philosophical tour de force melding astrophysics and grief by the American maestra of the prose poem

“If memory serves, it was five years ago that yours began to refuse,” Rosmarie Waldrop writes to her husband in The Nick of Time. “Does it feel like crossing from an open field into the woods, the sunlight suddenly switched off? Or like a roof without edge or frame, pushed sideways in time?” Ten years in the making, Waldrop’s phenomenally beautiful new collection explores the felt nature of existence as well as gravity and velocity, the second hemisphere of time, mortality and aging, language and immigration, a Chinese primer, the artist Hannah Höch, and dwarf stars. Of one sequence, “White Is a Color,” first published as a chapbook, the Irish poet Billy Mills wrote, “In what must be less than 1000 words, Waldrop says more about the human condition and how we explore it through words than most of us would manage in a thousand pages.” Love blooms in the cut, in the gap, in the nick between memory and thought, sentence and experience. Like the late work of Cézanne, Waldrop’s art has found a new way of seeing and thinking that “vibrates on multiple registers through endless, restless exploration” (citation for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize).
12.99 In Stock
The Nick of Time

The Nick of Time

by Rosmarie Waldrop
The Nick of Time

The Nick of Time

by Rosmarie Waldrop

eBook

$12.99  $16.95 Save 23% Current price is $12.99, Original price is $16.95. You Save 23%.

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

A philosophical tour de force melding astrophysics and grief by the American maestra of the prose poem

“If memory serves, it was five years ago that yours began to refuse,” Rosmarie Waldrop writes to her husband in The Nick of Time. “Does it feel like crossing from an open field into the woods, the sunlight suddenly switched off? Or like a roof without edge or frame, pushed sideways in time?” Ten years in the making, Waldrop’s phenomenally beautiful new collection explores the felt nature of existence as well as gravity and velocity, the second hemisphere of time, mortality and aging, language and immigration, a Chinese primer, the artist Hannah Höch, and dwarf stars. Of one sequence, “White Is a Color,” first published as a chapbook, the Irish poet Billy Mills wrote, “In what must be less than 1000 words, Waldrop says more about the human condition and how we explore it through words than most of us would manage in a thousand pages.” Love blooms in the cut, in the gap, in the nick between memory and thought, sentence and experience. Like the late work of Cézanne, Waldrop’s art has found a new way of seeing and thinking that “vibrates on multiple registers through endless, restless exploration” (citation for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize).

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780811230544
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date: 09/07/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 160
File size: 3 MB

About the Author

Rosmarie Waldrop, born in Germany in 1935, is the author of several books of poetry, fiction, and essays, and a noted translator of French and German poetry. Her most recent books are The Nick of Time, Gap Gardening: Selected Poems (winner of the Los Angeles Book Prize), and Driven to Abstraction. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts of Letters, and is a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. For fifty-six years, she and her husband Keith Waldrop ran one of the country’s most vibrant experimental poetry presses, Burning Deck, in Providence, Rhode Island.

Table of Contents

The Second Hemisphere of Time 1

Asymmetry 3

Bits and Pieces 7

The Almost Audible Passing of Time 10

Interval and High Time 14

Lament for Barbara Guest: The Poem Begins in Silence 18

Velocity But No Location 21

Third Person Singular 31

Lament for Robert Creeley 38

In Pieces 39

Natural 41

Tone Deep 42

So Slight a Sound 43

Plugs and Sockets 44

Encounter 45

Sunset Theory 46

Broom or Heather 47

This Delay 48

Perseverance 49

Undivided Attenuation 50

Simple Nature 51

Any Single Thing 52

Offers of Sky 53

The Equation Must be Beautiful 54

Preconceptions without Delay 55

The Problem with Pronouns 56

Lament for Anne-Marie Albiach: A Complication of Gravity 57

Mandarin Primer 59

Aspirates 61

Tones 62

Pronunciation 63

The Radicals 64

Vocabulary 65

Characters 66

Usage 67

Adversative Conjunctions 68

Calligraphy 69

Miscellaneous Examples 70

Recapitulation 71

Otherwise Smooth 73

Lament for Michael Gizzi: No Both 79

White is a Color 83

In Anyone's Language, Again 91

Silence 93

Error 94

Nouns 95

Already Distance 96

Punctuation 97

Commas 98

Intentions 99

Detour 100

Thread 101

Possessive Case 102

A Cough 103

Traces of Seafoam on the Beach 104

The Sky 105

Life, You Replied 106

Your Name 107

The Need 108

Your Singular, My Love 109

Erased Referent 110

Excess of Air 111

Conjunctions and Constituents 112

Lament for Edmond Jabès 113

Cut with the Kitchen Knife 115

Rehearsing the Symptoms 123

Wanting 125

Thinking 126

Doubting 128

Knowing 130

Doing 132

Coupling 134

Escaping Analogy 136

Meaning 138

Translating 141

Loving Words 143

Aging 145

Acknowledgments and Sources 149

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews