Bücher von Campbell McGrath

Capitalism and American Noiseintroduced readers to the musical, comedic, and impassioned voice of poet Campbell McGrath. Now, in Spring Comes to Chicago, McGrath pushes deeper into the jungle of American culture, exposing and celebrating our native hungers and dreams. In the centerpiece of the book, "The Bob Hope Poem," McGrath confronts the paradoxes that energize and confound us--examining his own avid affection for People magazine and contemplating such diverse subjects as Wittgenstein, meat packers, money, and, of course, Bob Hope himself. Whether viewing this life with existential gravity or consumerist glee, McGarth creates poetry that is at once public and profoundly personal.

A major new collection from one of our best loved, most celebrated, and most original poets Deeply personal but also expansive in its imaginative scope, Nouns & Verbs brings together thirty-five years of writing from Campbell McGrath, one of America's most highly lauded poets. Offering a hint of where he's headed while charting the territory already explored, McGrath gives us startlingly inventive new poems while surveying his previous work?lyric poems, prose poems, and a searing episodic personal epic, ?An Odyssey of Appetite,? exploring America's limitless material and spiritual hungers.Nothing is too large or small to remain untouched by McGrath's voracious intellect and deep empathy?everything from Japanese eggplant to a can of Schaefer beer to the smokestacks of Chicago comes in for a close and perceptive look even as McGrath crosses borders and boundaries, investigating the enduring human experiences of love and loss. A book that stands on its own solid foundation, Nouns & Verbs captures the voice and vision of a truly singular poet.

American Noise is a rapturous exploration of American culture and landscape. With compassionate wit and insight, Campbell McGrath transports us on a journey through contemporary society, transforming the commonplace into scenes of profound revelation. From late-night bars to early-morning diners, suburban malls to the Mojave Desert, McGrath's meticulously detailed vision defines singular moments of joy and melancholy.

Part fable, part diatribe, part elegy, part love song, this extraordinary fifth collection by Campbell McGrath makes poetry of the most unlikely of materials -- his home state of Florida. While at times poignantly personal, McGrath also returns for the first time to the characteristically comic and visionary public voice displayed in the renowned "Bob Hope Poem." Moving effortlessly from prehistory to the space age, he catalogues Florida's natural wonders and historical figureheads, from Ponce de León to Walt Disney, William Bartram to Chuck E. Cheese -- "the bewhiskered Mephistopheles of ring toss, /the diabolical vampire of our transcendent ideals." In the brilliant sociohistorical monologue of "The Florida Poem," McGrath employs the Fountain of Youth as a mythic symbol for both the tragic consequences of a society built on greed and cultural erasure and the diverse human potential, "which must become the fountain/for any communal future we might dare imagine."Place-bound and tightly focused, Campbell McGrath's message is nonetheless universal, as his penetrating vision of Florida is also a vision of America -- its history and hopes, failings and fulfillments, and the eternal force that transcends it all.

A poetic history of the twentieth century from one of our most beloved, popular, and highly lauded poets?a stirring, strikingly original, intensely imagined recreation of the most potent voices and searing moments that have shaped our collective experience.XX is award-winning poet Campbell McGrath's astonishing sequence of one hundred poems?one per year?written in a vast range of forms, and in the voices of figures as varied as Picasso and Mao, Frida Kahlo and Elvis Presley. Based on years of historical research and cultural investigation, XX turns poetry into an archival inquiry and a choral documentary. Hollywood and Hiroshima, Modernism and propaganda, Bob Dylan and Walter Benjamin?its range of interest encompasses the entire century of art and culture, invention and struggle.Elegiac and celebratory, deeply tragic and wickedly funny, XX is a unique collection from this acknowledged master of historical poetry, and his most ambitious book yet.