2011
First Published
4.62
Average Rating
86
Number of Pages
The poems in Ed Madden's second book, Variations, explore relations between men-fathers, sons, brothers, lovers-as well as questions of home and exile, memory and loss, and the promises and compromises of any return. In poems that are at once both mythic and deeply personal, Madden asks how we define home, what rituals and relationships sustain us in a world shaped by loss. Consistently reimagining and reinterpreting the biblical stories of his youth, the speaker tries to imagine a new identity and new relationships. If the lover offers a different sustaining relationship, the consolations and beauty of the natural world remain a constant in these poems, an ambiguous Eden in which the story may be different, but the human needs remain the same. This book of exile and longing imagines not a return to the old home, but arrival at a true home. It's less a coming of age collection, more a blossoming, a negotiation of a dangerous new world in which we have to reconcile with-without relenting to-the past.
Avg Rating
4.62
Number of Ratings
13
5 STARS
77%
4 STARS
8%
3 STARS
15%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
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Author
Ed Madden
Author · 5 books
An associate professor of English at USC, Ed Madden is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Nest (Salmon 2014). His work also appears in Best New Poets 2007 and elsewhere. He is also the editor of Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio. In January 2015, he was named the Poet Laureate of the City of Columbia, South Carolina.
