Strong Is Your Hold -- For Galway Kinnell

[govegan]

Galway is one of the few living poets whom I can read and recommend without reservation, virtually everything that he has published.

His latest book was just published near the end of 2006, I think. I purchased my copy as soon as I knew of it in January this year.

The beautiful and so appropriate epigraph is from Whitman:

Tenderly -- be not impatient,
(Strong is your hold O mortal flesh,
Strong is your hold O love.)

A great bonus to the new hardbound edition is a cd with a reading of the entire work by Mr. Kinnell himself!!!

O, lovers of poetry, tasters of truth and admirers of vision, hesitate not and you will be pleased.

Some of the poems are quite difficult methinks on first blush. Not the same primal rush experienced as energetically as The Book of Nightmares or Body Rags.

So very richly rewarding to those who labor, tantalizingly poignant yet piquant in their savoriness, these are works of illumination that scarcely need the full light of the moon for easily can the light of a distant star emblazon every page.

Titles like "Pulling a Nail" "The Quick and the Dead" "When the Towers Fell" and "Everyone Was in Love".

Snake tails dangled down their back,
and snake foreparts in various lengths
fell over their fronts. With heads raised and swaying,
<skip>
The snakes seemed to be tickled, too.
<skip>
Inside the double-hinged jaw, a frog's green
webbed hind feet were being drawn,
like a diver's, very slowly as if into deepest waters.
Perhaps thinking I might be considering rescue,
Maud said, "Don't. Frog is already elsewhere."

From "Everyone Was in Love," which is printed as well on the back of the dust jacket.

Has anyone else seen this new work yet?

Does anyone have any comments in general on Kinnell or any of his poems?