Description |
xxi, 141 pages ; 22 cm |
Contents |
Musical tables -- Highway -- Ad -- The naked eye -- Argument from design -- New calendar -- The Mohawk Diner, 3 AM -- Dog -- An exaltation of frogs -- Look -- Limits -- Last to leave the party -- The dead of winter -- Carbon dating -- From a railing -- Flaubert -- Mute potato -- Headstones -- Creative writing -- The code of the west -- Breaking up -- The sociologist -- Pupil -- Reflections on an Amish childhood -- Night sky -- Used book -- Thelonious Morning -- Seashore -- Random -- Teenager -- Twisting time -- D Major -- Simplicity -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -- Eyes -- Falling asleep -- A memory -- Poetry -- Motel parking lot -- View -- Flash -- The visit -- The Sunday Times -- The first straw -- Koan in the rain -- Creche -- ENG 243: The history of egotism -- Hotel room -- New York directions -- A small hotel -- Angelus -- Pysical -- 4'33" by John Cage -- Olden plea -- Three for a quarter -- Yamaha -- Quatrain -- Dogma -- November morning -- Google maps -- Oxymorons -- Art revolutionaries -- Medium and message -- The Milky Way -- Envelope -- Jazz man -- Child astronomy -- Children -- Breakfast -- Divorce -- Face up -- Octopus sonneteer -- Dictionary wanderings -- Junior philosopher -- Zen backfire -- Tom Thumb's thumb -- Neighborhood -- Wet morning -- Covid -- Empty house -- View from a bridge -- Spacing -- Poetry collection -- Orphans -- Departure -- Deep Mexican night -- Charmed -- Celtic interlacing -- Corridor -- Deer hit -- Awake -- Page-turner -- Pianissimo -- Card sharp -- Carpe diem -- Italian palindrome -- Avoidance -- Nurse -- Refrigerator light -- Summer -- Morning walk -- 3:00 AM -- Poems -- Saying -- Angler -- Corn field -- A rake's progress -- Sunday morning -- The student -- The English professor -- Fay -- Young Webster -- Birthday poem -- After the concert -- Light-year -- Cornish -- Symphony No. 4 (Brahms) -- Reclining on clouds -- The exception -- Quickie exphrasis -- Medieval photography -- Bad hotel -- Siren -- Holloween -- Elegy -- Disappointing freak show -- Coincidence -- Lazy creator -- Weekday. |
Summary |
""America's favorite poet" (the Wall Street Journal) has found a new form for his unique poetic style: the small poem. Here Collins writes about his trademark themes of nature, animals, poetry, mortality, absurdity, and love--all in a handful of lines. Neither Haiku nor limmerick, and certainly not a gimmick, the small poem pushes to an extreme poetry's famed power to condense emotional and conceptual content into small spaces. Taken together the more than 125 new poems of Musical Chairs show one of our greatest poets channeling his unique voice into a new phase of his luminous career"-- Provided by publisher. |
Subject |
American poetry.
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Genre |
Poetry.
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ISBN |
9780399589782 (hardcover) |
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