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Reign of Snakes

Part of Penguin Poets

Author Robert Wrigley
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Paperback
$22.00 US
Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Books
On sale Jun 01, 1999 | 112 Pages | 9780140589191
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Described by the late James Dickey as "one of the finest new poets to come along in years," Robert Wrigley fulfills that early promise with this, his newest collection. Reign of Snakes is a book about desire, the soul's desire as much as the body's. As Jane Hirshfield said of Wrigley's previous book, In the Bank of Beautiful Sins (Penguin, 1995), "To read it is to unpeel a little further into the human, and into the wideness that holds the human--a splendid gift." Reign of Snakes takes us to yet another level, deep into the daily devotions, "where the dark blows a kiss to night."

. . . a frigid day in February and a full-grownrattlesnake curled to a comma in the middle of the middle of the just-plowed road. Ice ghost, I think, curve of rock or stubbed-off branch. But the diamonds are there, under a dust of crystals looming, impossible, summer's tattoo, the mythical argyle of evil.

--from "Reign of Snakes"

Reign of SnakesPart One: The Afterlife
Why Do the Crickets Sing?
Dark Forest
Hoarfrost
Flies
Sad Moose
Part Elegy
Art
Having Heard the Moon
Open Grave

Part Two: Amazing Grace
The Pumpkin Tree
Lessons
Movies
The Theory and Practice of Fables
The Knowing
After the Flood
The Burned Cemetery
Wanting God
Our Father

Part Three: Meditation at Bedrock Canyon
Reign of Snakes

Part Four: Night Music
Ice Fishing
Prey
More Rain
Peace
Arrowhead
Nostalgia
Bodies
Prayer for the Winter
Conjure

Envoy: The Name

  • WINNER
    Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
© Canese Jarboe
Robert Wrigley has won numerous awards for his work, including the Kingsley Tufts Award, the San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award, and a Pacific Northwest Book Award. He lives in the woods of Idaho, with his wife the writer Kim Barnes. The True Account of Myself As a Bird is his twelfth collection of poems. He is also the author of a collection of personal essays, mostly about poetry, called Nemerov’s Door. View titles by Robert Wrigley

About

Described by the late James Dickey as "one of the finest new poets to come along in years," Robert Wrigley fulfills that early promise with this, his newest collection. Reign of Snakes is a book about desire, the soul's desire as much as the body's. As Jane Hirshfield said of Wrigley's previous book, In the Bank of Beautiful Sins (Penguin, 1995), "To read it is to unpeel a little further into the human, and into the wideness that holds the human--a splendid gift." Reign of Snakes takes us to yet another level, deep into the daily devotions, "where the dark blows a kiss to night."

. . . a frigid day in February and a full-grownrattlesnake curled to a comma in the middle of the middle of the just-plowed road. Ice ghost, I think, curve of rock or stubbed-off branch. But the diamonds are there, under a dust of crystals looming, impossible, summer's tattoo, the mythical argyle of evil.

--from "Reign of Snakes"

Table of Contents

Reign of SnakesPart One: The Afterlife
Why Do the Crickets Sing?
Dark Forest
Hoarfrost
Flies
Sad Moose
Part Elegy
Art
Having Heard the Moon
Open Grave

Part Two: Amazing Grace
The Pumpkin Tree
Lessons
Movies
The Theory and Practice of Fables
The Knowing
After the Flood
The Burned Cemetery
Wanting God
Our Father

Part Three: Meditation at Bedrock Canyon
Reign of Snakes

Part Four: Night Music
Ice Fishing
Prey
More Rain
Peace
Arrowhead
Nostalgia
Bodies
Prayer for the Winter
Conjure

Envoy: The Name

Awards

  • WINNER
    Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award

Author

© Canese Jarboe
Robert Wrigley has won numerous awards for his work, including the Kingsley Tufts Award, the San Francisco Poetry Center Book Award, and a Pacific Northwest Book Award. He lives in the woods of Idaho, with his wife the writer Kim Barnes. The True Account of Myself As a Bird is his twelfth collection of poems. He is also the author of a collection of personal essays, mostly about poetry, called Nemerov’s Door. View titles by Robert Wrigley

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