The Life and Death of Poetry: Poems

Winner of the 2013 L. E. Phillabaum Poetry Award In her ninth collection of poetry, Kelly Cherry explores the domain of language. Clear and accessible, the poems in The Life and Death of Poetry examine the intricacies and limitations of communication and its ability to help us transcend our world and lives. The poet begins with silence and animal sound before taking on literature, public discourse, and the particular art of poetry. The sequence "Welsh Table Talk" considers the unsaid, or unsayable, as a man, his daughter, and his daughter's friend sojourn on Bardsey Island in Wales with the father's female companion. The innocence and playful chatter of the children throw into sharp relief a desolate landscape and failed communication between the adults. In the book's final section, Cherry considers translation, great art's grand sublimity, and the relation of poetry—the divine tongue—to the everyday world. Witty, poignant, wise, and joyous, The Life and Death of Poetry offers a masterful new collection from an accomplished poet.