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by: Frank Bidart
List Price: $11.00Amazon.com's Price: $8.80 You Save: $2.20 (20%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.54
EAN: 9780374525996
ISBN: 0374525994
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 64
Publication Date: March 30, 1999
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sales Rank: 497472
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.I hate and--love. The sleepless body hammering a nail nails itself, hanging crucified.--from 'Catullus: Excrucior' In Frank Bidart's collection of poems, the encounter with desire is the encounter with destiny. The first half contains some of Bidart's most luminous and intimate work-poems about the art of writing, Eros, and the desolations and mirror of history (in a spectacular narrative based on Tacitus). The second half of the book exts the overt lyricism of the opening section into even more ambitious territory-'The Second Hour of the Night' may be Bidart's most profound and complex meditation on the illusion of will, his most seductive dramatic poem to date.
Amazon.com Review:
Desire, Frank Bidart's first book since In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965-1990, is in two parts. Part I is a collection of short poems; Part II consists of a single poem, 'The Second Hour of the Night,' a sequel to 'The First Hour of the Night' that ends In the Western Night. Bidart, a poet who makes a large arc between the universal and the idiosyncratic, has learned that the transformations themselves, rendered without comment, have the capacity to chill your blood.
The source for 'The Second Hour of the Night' is Ovid's story of Myrrha and her father Cinyras, one of the least-known but most suggestive tales--a reversal of the Oedipus myth. Bidart's tormented dramatization of Ovid's version reads like an investigation into the deepest layers of the story. While both poets turn the doomed heroine into a plant, Bidart looks into causes and motivation in a way that Ovid does not.
The short poems in the first section of Desire are also very strong. The poet, torn apart by the death of his lover, gives you a sense of the distance he has traveled over the past 15 years when he retranslates the two-line poem 'Catullus: Excrucior,' which he brilliantly adapted in The Sacrifice.
Version in The Sacrifice: I hate and love. Ignorant fish, who even
wants the fly while writhing. Version in Desire: I hate and--love. The sleepless body hammering a nail nails
itself, hanging crucified. Bidart's acute perception of complicity allows him to do away with the idea of the victim. This is a formidable achievement, and his work is worthy of the scrutiny it demands.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Book Awards and Such
May we be reminded this was a great choice in 1997 for the National Book Critics Circle Award. I point this out because most of the books that have received the award are great reads. His book "Golden State" probably was the best before this, while remembering "The Sacrifice" as well. I want to find a copy of "Golden State". Anyway, when thinking about this book, one should remember the notoriety that it and its author have received. It was a finalist for the National Book Award as well. I have found ... Read More
Rating: - Okay, but not worth buying
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This is a very short book. I enjoyed some of its first half when I read it. Then, but for two poems, I didn't even care to read the rest more than once. I tried, but it had little to no emotional impact. I love, love, love his interpretation of Catullus's Odi Et Amo -- love it. I'd say it's worth the price of admission, but... there it is right in the book description above, to be easily printed out and saved (and only one version is in this book). I couldn't get into the second half at ... Read More
Rating: - Read Ovid AND Bidart!
"The Second Hour of the Night" is probably the best long poem written in English in the past few decades. This book was robbed of the Pulitzer, and is worth buying (or just reading) for it alone. The first half of the book is, honestly, just filler. But the second, final poem makes up for it!
Rating:  - Read Ovid instead.
This book is self-indulgent tripe ... there's a fine line between the wonderful tradition of rewriting and reinterpreting previously-told stories (see Ann Carson's Autobiography of Red for an absolutely glittering example) and just retelling. In this case, the story of Cineras and Myrra is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses and spun out in excruciating detail. The difference between Ovid (and for that matter Carson) and Bidart is that the former poets use interesting language, whereas Bidart's is boring ... Read More
Rating:  - A powerful, wonderful collection
Frank Bidart's the best American Poetry's got
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