Strong Is Your Hold [With CD of Poems]

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Galway Kinnell presents his eleventh poetry collection Strong Is Your Hold, dubbed a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times. The free-verse lyrics revolve around topics ranging from love poems and expressions of sexuality to admiration for the natural world; tales of Kinnell's father, children, fellow poets, and personal heroes; to "When the Towers Fell", Kinnell's somber requiem for those who died in the September 11th attacks. An accompanying audio CD of Kinnell reading his own work rounds out this groundbreaking and highly recommended anthology. "When The Towers Fell": [...] // In our minds the glassy blocks succumb over and over, / slamming down floor by floor into themselves, / blowing up as if in reverse, exploding // downward and rolling outward, / the way, in the days of the gods, a god / might rage through the streets, overtaking the fleeing. // As each tower goes down, it concentrates / into itself, transforms itself / infinitely slowly into a black hole // infinitesimally small: mass / without space, where each light, / each life, put out, lies down within us.

Galway Kinnell's latest collection begins with the poem, "The Stone Table" which reflects Kinnell's signature style while also going deeper into terrain he has explored throughout his life's work. The poem places us "Here on the hill behind the house/we sit with our feet up on the edge/of the eight-by-ten stone slab/that was once the floor of the cow pass." From this vantage point, the poet leads us to consider the geography of his poetic icons, "the blackberry thicket," ("Blackberry Eating"); "Freedom," ("Freedom, New Hampshire"); "the bear," ("The Bear") among them. The stone table becomes a resting place that hints at the fourth stanza's meditation on Donald Hall's trip to Jane Kenyon's grave and to closing with the poet's desire to stay on "this earth we attach ourselves to so fiercely." Strong Is Your Hold is a celebration of our attachment to the world and what it means to be human, as well as a testimony to the past and to our memories. It is not only a masterful work by one of American poetry's giants but provides the kind of reflection or commentary on Kinnell's life themes that make this book critical for any fan of Kinnell's poetry. It is a book in conversation with his other work, with the world of poetry, and with the world. The volume also comes with a CD of the poet reading the poems from the book and anyone who has heard Galway Kinnell read knows that this alone is worth the price of the book.

Beautiful in their directness and clarity, the poems in this volume are nothing to be afraid of. Very accessible by any reader.

This may be one of the most beautiful poetry collections I have ever had the fortune of coming across and now adding to my extensive library.

"The book's title derives from Walt Whitman's Last Invocation: Strong is your hold O mortal flesh, / Strong is your hold O love. In 2000, Galway Kinnell, another poet who draws from life, wrote in the preface to "A New Selected Poems": "For many years, I have felt exasperated by my intractable habit of working at certain poems again and again, over long spans of time. But in recent years I have come to accept that, at least in the case of a complex project, this is simply how I write. It makes me think of the digestive process of a Methuselah-ian ruminant animal, one with many many stomachs, that chews its cud for decades (though I don't want to carry this analogy to its logical alimentary end)." This is a typically earthy expression from a writer who, in the exuberant poem "The Bear," evoked a poetic alter ego stalking with knives in his fists and subsisting on "bear blood alone." Galway Kinnell has been a MacArthur Fellow and the state poet of Vermont. He has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has published several books of translations, including the poetry of Francois Villon and Rainer Maria Rilke. For many years he was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing at New York University. He is currently a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. My best friend introduced me to Galway Kinnell with the poem 'The Bear' and I fell in love with this poet. 'Strong Is Your Hold' is the eleventh book of poems by Galway Kinnell. The New York Times has called him a true master poet of his generation. Included also is 'When the Towers Fell', a requiem for those who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. This book of poems is so special to me. It speaks of relationships; family, lovers, father and child, man and wife, sister and brother, friends, and heroes. There are 24 remarkable poems in the set and one poem for the ages that will forever stand on its own, 'When The Towers Fall'. The last stanza speaks to me as no others about our fellow man and that terrible day; In our minds the glassy blocks succumb over and over slamming down floor by floor into themselves blowing up as if in reverse, exploding. downward and rolling downward' the way, in the days of the gods, a god might rage through the streets, overtaking the fleeing As each tower goes down, it concentrates into itself transforms itself infinitely slowly into a black hole infinitesimally small: mass without space, where each light each life, put out, lies down within us. and my favorite poem 'Promissory Note' If I die before you which is all but certain then in the moment before you will see me become someone dead in a transformation as quick as a shooting Star I will cross over into you and ask you too carry not only your memories but mine too until you too lie down and erase us both together into oblivion. "He uses spare, natural imagery to explore death and tragedy, as in the solemn ''When the Towers Fell.'' For enthusiasts with Goo