Writing the Silences

by Richard O. Moore, Brenda Hillman (Editor), Paul Ebenkamp (Editor), Brenda Hillman (Foreword by)

Overview

The poems in Writing the Silences represent more than 60 years of Richard O. Moore’s work as a poet. Selected from seven full-length manuscripts written between 1946 and 2008, these poems reflect not only Moore’s place in literary history—he is the last of his generation of the legendary group of San Francisco Renaissance poets—but also his reemergence into today’s literary world after an important career as a filmmaker and producer in public radio and television. Writing the Silences reflects Moore’s commitment to freedom of form, his interest in language itself, and his dedication to issues of social justice and ecology.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520262447
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	04/02/2010
Series:	New California Poetry , #30
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Richard O. Moore, now 90, is a poet, filmmaker, and seminal figure in public radio and television. Moore belonged to the San Francisco Renaissance literary circle of Kenneth Rexroth in the 1940s and 1950s, which was a precursor to the Beat poetry movement. Writing the Silences is his second book. Moore is the 2010 recipient of the Milley Award for Achievement in the Literary Arts. Brenda Hillman is an award-winning poet who has published eight books of poems, most recently Practical Water. Her collection Loose Sugar was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1997. She is Olivia C. Filippi Professor of Poetry at Saint Mary's College. Paul Ebenkamp holds an M.F.A. from Saint Mary's College and works as a research assistant and editor.

Table of Contents

Contents
Photographs follow page

Preface Brenda Hillman

Acknowledgments

[Therefore, set forth over the black river]
Shadow and Light
Itinerary
By the Lake
Utensils
Driving to Fort Bragg
Dog in the Forest
History
Columbia 1960
Ten Philosophical Asides
Marginalia: Whitehead
Quotations
Analects
from d{ens}e{ens}l{ens}e{ens}t{ens}e
“Come Live with Me”
:{ems}It{ems}:
from Writing the Silences
“Come Sunday”
Birthright
Notebook
This Morning
Aftershock
Visiting Hours
The Parachutist’s Annunciation
Holding On
. . . a divertimento . . .
Footnotes
A Funeral of Memory
The Winter Garden
A Treasury of Darkness
Introit
Over the Shoulder
Meanwhile

Early Poems
from A History Primer
Seascape
from September Elegy
from At Caesar’s Gate
A Reminiscence
Birthday View Opening on a Garden

Notes

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Almost 60 years of thoughtful, terse, decidedly modernist verse and prose poetry come together in this first collection. . . . much of it tersely humble, both philosophical and political, with cadence reminiscent of George Oppen."—Publishers Weekly

"Richard O. Moore's no sapling by a long shot, but his poetry is lithe. It expands itself in the off-handed dialect of this country's newest voices, but remains rooted to the old codes of keen sincerity. It is real poetry, sure enough to break from silence and, when need be, return."—Bomb Magazine (Bomblog)

"[These poems] are at once sensual and intellectual, erotic and philosophic, and they appeal to all the senses."—Redwood Coast Review

Editorial Reviews

Almost 60 years of thoughtful, terse, decidedly modernist verse and prose poetry come together in this first collection. Part of the circle of West Coast radical writers around Kenneth Rexroth during the 1940s and '50s, Moore helped to found Pacifica Radio, then produced hundreds of literary programs for the public TV station KQED. All the while he was writing poetry, much of it tersely humble, both philosophical and political, with cadence reminiscent of George Oppen: “How may I be wrong and/ at random say 'I know'/ as the wars go on?” Moore's prose poems show more emotion, and more detail, letting loose with rage or else with satire: “There are those who will start again and again and alone, and there are those who will wait for War to come in their time.” Advancing years (“baggage/ of old age/ tagged and waiting”), landscape, and grief provide occasional themes, but rarely interrupt Moore's focus on the largest questions of ethics, of thought, questions he addresses in the serious fragments out of which his poems are made. The volume offers obvious parallels to other poets discovered in late life, especially to Landis Everson, who moved in the same Berkeley circles. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

[These poems] are at once sensual and intellectual, erotic and philosophic, and they appeal to all the senses.

Redwood Coast Review - Jonah Raskin

Richard O. Moore’s no sapling by a long shot, but his poetry is lithe. It expands itself in the off-handed dialect of this country’s newest voices, but remains rooted to the old codes of keen sincerity. It is real poetry, sure enough to break from silence and, when need be, return.

Bomb Magazine (Bomblog)