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Sep 05, 2017 | ISBN 9780804172943 Buy
Mar 03, 2015 | ISBN 9780385353762 Buy
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Sep 05, 2017 | ISBN 9780804172943
Mar 03, 2015 | ISBN 9780385353762
Now in paperback, this stunning collection of elegies–a finalist for the National Book Award–bears witness to the small beauties and inevitable losses of our transient life.Elegy for a Broken Machine is a son’s lament for his father. It takes us from the luminous world of childhood to the fluorescent glare of operating rooms and recovery wards, and into the twilight lives of those who must go on. In one poem Phillips watches his sons play “Mercy” just as he did with his brother: hands laced, the stronger pushing the other back until he grunts for mercy, “a game we played // so many times / I finally taught my sons, // not knowing what it was, / until too late, I’d done.” Phillips documents the unsung joys of midlife, the betrayals of the human body, and his realization that as the crowd of ghosts grows, we take our places, next in line. The result is a twenty-first-century memento mori, fashioned not just from loss but also from praise, and a fierce love for the world in all its ruined splendor.
The poet Patrick Phillips brings us a stunning third collection that is at its core a son’s lament for his father. This book of elegies takes us from the luminous world of childhood to the fluorescent glare of operating rooms and recovery wards, and into the twilight lives of those who must go on. In one poem Phillips watches his sons play “Mercy” just as he did with his brother: hands laced, the stronger pushing the other back until he grunts for mercy, “a game we played // so many times / I finally taught my sons, // not knowing what it was, / until too late, I’d done.” Phillips documents the unsung joys of midlife, the betrayals of the human body, and his realization that as the crowd of ghosts grows, we take our places, next in line. The result is a twenty-first-century memento mori, fashioned not just from loss but also from praise, and a fierce love for the world in all its ruined splendor.
PATRICK PHILLIPS is the author of two previous poetry collections, Boy and Chattahoochee, a work of nonfiction, Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America, and is translator of When We Leave Each Other: Selected Poems by the Danish writer Henrik Nordbrandt. His honors include fellowships… More about Patrick Phillips
National Book Award Finalist FINALIST 2015
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