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    Reign of Snakes

    Part of Penguin Poets

    Author Robert Wrigley
    Ebook
    Penguin Adult HC/TR | Penguin Books
    On sale Jun 01, 1999 | 112 Pages | 9781440621291
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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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