2001
First Published
4.26
Average Rating
88
Number of Pages
By Reason of Breakings, Andrew Zawacki's first book of poetry, overwhelms and silences by virtue of its extremely austere beauty. In highly wrought lyrics, prose poems, fragments of apocrypha, and splintered efforts at song, this volume is forceful and haunted by doubt. Each intimate and restrained line is a glimpse at a wisdom that defies paraphrase, each image carefully chosen and constructed. Zawacki's language summons and invites and is almost menacing in its delicate "Weight is the syntax of filling empty scalpels and expired tissue fall, but fire rises to fever and sere." While pursuing an explanation for the disappearance of God and for the denouement of a love affair, and exploring the failure of language to compensate or console, these poems maintain their sublime power and elegance.
Avg Rating
4.26
Number of Ratings
31
5 STARS
55%
4 STARS
23%
3 STARS
16%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Andrew Zawacki
Author · 6 books
[A]n American poet, critic, editor, and translator. His first book By Reason of Breakings won the 2001 University of Georgia Contemporary Poetry Series, chosen by Forrest Gander. Work from his second book, Anabranch, was awarded the 2002 Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. The volume also includes his 2001 chapbook Masquerade, selected by C.D. Wright to receive the 2002 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award. He has coedited the international literary magazine Verse with Brian Henry since 1995 and has taught at the University of Georgia since 2005. Andrew Zawacki is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., the first Greek-letter organization among black college students. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew\_Z...)
