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by: Charles Simic
List Price: $18.95Amazon.com's Price: $12.89 You Save: $6.06 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 709.2
EAN: 9781590171707
ISBN: 1590171705
Label: NYRB Classics
Manufacturer: NYRB Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 116
Publication Date: September 12, 2006
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Release Date: September 12, 2006
Sales Rank: 72238
Studio: NYRB Classics
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
In Dime-Store Alchemy, poet Charles Simic re?ects on the life and work of Joseph Cornell,
the maverick surrealist who is one of America’s great artists. Simic’s spare prose is as enchanting and luminous as the mysterious boxes of found objects for which Cornell is justly renowned.
In a work that is in various degrees biography, criticism, and sheer poetry, Simic tells the story of Cornell’s life and illuminates the hermetic mysteries of his extraordinary boxes–objects in which private obsessions were alchemically transformed into enduring works of art. Simic sees Cornell’s work as exemplifying a distinctively American aesthetic, open to the world, improvisatory, at once homemade and universal, modest and teasing and profound. Full of unexpected riches, Dime-Store Alchemy is both an entrancing meditation on the nature of art and a perfect introduction to a major American artist by one of his peers–a book that can be perused at length or dipped into at leisure again and again.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - If you loved the Cornell show at the Peaboday- Essex
Then you will love this book of short essays and responses to Joseph Cornell's work by our Poet Laureate. It's amll and without a dustjacket, quite elegant and easy to take with you to read when you find yourself with a few spare minutes.
Rating: - Dime Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell
This elegant book reminded me of "Einstien's Dreams." The book is about the genius of imagination. Cornell's provincial life gave him the opportunity to observe his world closely and let it expand into his art. The writing by the poet Simic is a piece of art in itself.
Rating: - Delicious!!
Reading Dime-Store Alchemy is a fine way to get to know Joseph Cornell's work (and of course Charles Simic's). Simic uses a writing style which pieces together different elements of Cornell's favorite authors and poets, beautifully reflecting the montage operation created by Cornell himself. As Simic ambiguously reveals aspects of Cornell's life in New York City, the reader finds him/herself on the same search for an understanding of beauty that the artist spent his entire life investigating. ... Read More
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