Calenture
By Kent Shaw
2008
First Published
4.55
Average Rating
100
Number of Pages
In this memorable first book, Kent Shaw explores layers of devotion, illusion, and sacrifice in abstract and personal terms. At age eighteen, he enlisted for six years of service in the U.S. Navy. Midway through, his unadulterated patriotism shifted to unanticipated doubt. Calenture - whose title refers to a sickness sailors suffer as they come to believe the ocean is a meadow, try to walk into it, and find themselves drowning- draws upon rich seagoing metaphors to probe faith, change, and delusion. With poems of ocean and spirit, land and love, family and stranger, this book is anchored and buoyed by a sailor's undeniable longing to experience a great voyage fully and to render it true and whole.
Avg Rating
4.55
Number of Ratings
22
5 STARS
59%
4 STARS
36%
3 STARS
5%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
Kent Shaw
Author · 2 books
Kent Shaw is the author of Too Numerous (University of Massachusetts Press, 2019) and Calenture (University of Tampa Press, 2008). His poems have appeared in Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, The Believer, Colorado Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and others. He has a PhD at University of Houston and an MFA from Washington University. For five years he taught at West Virginia State University. He now teaches at Wheaton College in Massachusetts.
