To the Left of Time

by Thomas Lux

Overview

A brilliant new collection of poems by Kingsley Tufts Award–winning poet Thomas Lux

With To the Left of Time, Thomas Lux adds more than fifty new poems to his celebrated oeuvre. Broken into three sections, these include semi-autobiographical poems, odes, and a final section that delves into a variety of subjects reflective of Lux’s imaginative range. Full of his characteristic satire and humor, this new collection promises laughter and profound insight into the human condition.

To the Left of Time is a powerful addition to the work of one who has been widely praised for his ability to offer image- and metaphor-driven visions as well as lines of plain language and immediacy. This collection proves that Lux’s work will continue to inspire readers for decades to come.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544649651
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/05/2016
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	645,339
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

THOMAS LUX holds the Bourne Chair in Poetry and is the director of the McEver Visiting Writers Program at Georgia Institute of Technology. He has been awarded three NEA grants and the Kingsley Tufts Award and is a former Guggenheim Fellow. He lives in Atlanta.

Table of Contents

Part I

Cow Chases Boys 3

Haystack of Needles 4

Nullius in Verba (Take Nobody's Word for It) 5

Indigo Felix 6

The Horse Poisoner 7

A Long Line of Nightingales 8

My Father Whistled 9

Double Barrel Sparrow 10

For My Sister 11

The Milking Stool 12

Glass Eye 13

Manure Pile Covered in Snow 14

So Bury Me in a Barrel 16

The Day 17

Grade Schools' Large Windows 18

Part II Odes

Ode to the Joyful Ones 21

Ode to the Eating Establishment Where the Utensils Were Chained to the Table 22

Ode to the Fire Hydrant 23

Ode While Awaiting Execution 24

Ode to What I Have Forgotten 26

Ode to the Eraser as Big as a Bus 28

Ode Elaborating on the Obvious 30

Ode to All Songs, Poems, Stories That Begin "I Woke Up This Morning" 31

Ode to IQ and Aptitude Tests 32

Ode to the Unbroken World, Which Is Coming 34

Ode to the Electric Fish That Eat Only the Tails of Other Electric Fish 36

Ode to Small Islands 37

Ode to Peep Tubes and Their Makers 38

Ode to Chronic Insolvency 40

Ode to the Pig Rolled from the Castle down a Hill to Where the Peasants Wait with Axes 42

Ode to Gandhi, Who Wrote a Letter to Hitler Asking Him Not to Start a War 43

Ode to Pain in the Absence of an Obvious Cause of Pain 44

Ode to the Fat Child Who Went First onto the Thin Ice 45

Ode to the Moment Between Dust and Dust 46

Ode to Those Who Study the Miasmas 48

Ode to the River That Abandons One Channel and Finds Another More Suited to Its Purpose 50

Ode to Asa Bundy Sheffey 51

Ode to the Archipelagoes of Discarded Chewing Gum on Sidewalks 52

Ode to Scars 53

Ode to Lichen 54

Part III

A Mail's Little Heart's Short Fever Fit 57

There's a Word for It 58

Blue with Collapse 60

Praisegod Barebones 61

Attila the Hun Meets Pope Leo I 62

Along the Trail of Your Vertebral Spine 63

For Second Lieutenant J. Wesley Rosenquest 64

Tristan da Cunha 66

Oofty Goofty 67

Lobotomobile 68

History Island 69

Frank Stanford at Sixty-three 70

Onomatomania 71

The Nervo-Sanguine 72

Ancient Blades 74

Credits 77

Editorial Reviews

"After a long career, the multi-award-winning Lux luxuriates in a chance to weigh the past ('What we were thinking/ was bombing the cows with dirtballs') against the present ('Always nervous around the cheerful,/ though drawn to them, always leery/ of the happy, I now find myself cheerful,/ and that makes me nervous'). After a first section loaded with unsentimentalized rural images—there's snow-covered manure and a string of small tragedies from a putative horse poisoner to a cousin's scarlet fever—we arrive at a selection of tongue-in-cheek or modestly touching odes ('I never meant to confuse/ those who thought—without malice/ and with some concern—otherwise: I was average'). A third section acutely observes the world ('Everything I hear is overviolined') as a sense of quiet acceptance threads its way throughout. VERDICTAn accessible collection that will have broad appeal."—Library Journal —

From the Publisher

04/01/2016
After a long career, the multi-award-winning Lux luxuriates in a chance to weigh the past ("What we were thinking/ was bombing the cows with dirtballs") against the present ("Always nervous around the cheerful,/ though drawn to them, always leery/ of the happy, I now find myself cheerful,/ and that makes me nervous"). After a first section loaded with unsentimentalized rural images—there's snow-covered manure and a string of small tragedies from a putative horse poisoner to a cousin's scarlet fever—we arrive at a selection of tongue-in-cheek or modestly touching odes ("I never meant to confuse/ those who thought—without malice/ and with some concern—otherwise: I was average"). A third section acutely observes the world ("Everything I hear is overviolined") as a sense of quiet acceptance threads its way throughout. VERDICT An accessible collection that will have broad appeal. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/15.]

Library Journal