|
by: Mark Svenvold
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.54
EAN: 9781574410464
ISBN: 1574410466
Label: University of North Texas Press
Manufacturer: University of North Texas Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 59
Publication Date: 1998-03
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
Sales Rank: 3224550
Studio: University of North Texas Press
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Lyrical, evocative; dense with meaning and mystery
The best poetry I've read by a living poet. I've read these poems over and over. I particularly like, for example, the sestina, A Variation on Themes by the Doors. It's work on paper, but unlike so much new poetry, it is not paper thin. It is lyrical, inventive (without being eccentric), evocative and dense with meaning and mystery. It is emotional and yet the author never spews or sprawls. He is pointed, and controlled without ever being rigid. He uses traditional forms effectively, without ... Read More
Rating: - High Praise for Soul Data
In the mid '80s, the Cabaret Hegel, a reading and performance series was held in an old boot factory in Seattle, Washington, until the structure was torn down to make way for a major freeway interchange. Fortunately, the Cabaret Hegel has been remembered more poetically by one of its participants, Mark Svenvold, in the opening sequence of his first book, Soul Data. But to say that this homage consists of a series of sonnets is just as inadequate as my flat statement of the cabaret's history. Poetic ... Read More
Rating: - SVENVOLD: Serenades, Augury, and Elegies
SOUL DATA by Mark Svenvold is a poetic elegy to place, time, and family. In EVIDENCE, "...liberty--/ how most of us have used ours up and carry/ what's left as we carry our bodies,/ pouting and untenable, from place to place--". And in SEX FIEND SONNET: "the wreck I've caused I am." Serenades, augury, and elegies are all part of the mix here. Svenvold's western voice is as clear and as erotic as that of Hugo or Wright. The subject throughout this wonderful first collection seems to be the endurance ... Read More
Rating: - Soul Data presents a brilliant new voice in American poetry.
Mark Svenvold's new collection of poetry, entitled appropriately, Soul Data, is a rich tapestry of material and etherial images (lumberman boots "hobnailed and treble-stitched", "air like silk drawn into the lungs," "mist of angels on the head of a pin"), of bold and subtle twists on traditional poetic forms (sonnet, villanelle), of personal and universal histories and geographies. Svenvold's debut soliloquy is really more of a symphony, a harmonious blending of different voices and sounds (from the wind in the ... Read More
Rating: - This is a dynamite book of poetry
Since you posted the terrible Kirkus review (always wretched)you need to hear a few words from Seattle's "Stranger" written by Jan Wallace, since these words express my sentiments precisely : 'Heather McHugh had her wits about her when she awarded the Vassar Miller Prize to Svenvold's "Soul Data," a book of poems that transforms form from the inside out. I've followed Svenvold's poetic progress for over ten years -- his work has only gotten more and more intense and precise. Sonnets, a villanelle, a sequence of ... Read More
|
