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Man Praying
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About This Book
In his sixth book, Donald Platt starts a poem by exclaiming, "The days are one thousand / puzzle pieces." He gathers up the days into this book of terrors and ecstasies decanted in seamlessly reversing tercets of long and short lines, syllabic couplets, and lyric prose.
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Information
These
poems—powered
by
Donald
Platt’s
extensive
curiosity—spin
out
his
fascinations
in
such
loving
detail
that
I
am
persuaded
to
look
closer,
not
only
at
what
his
mind
examines,
but
the
world
itself.
By
turning
and
turning
his
subjects
before
our
eyes,
he
deepens
our
awareness
of
life’s
complexities
and
wonders,
and
offers
a
testament
to
the
power
of
intelligence
to
foster
a
sense
of
purpose
and
belonging.
His
gaze
is
a
kind
of
reverence.
—Bob
Hicok
Want
a
narrative
poem
that
doesn’t
sound
dated,
or
clunky,
or
stunt-like?
Platt
did,
so
he
wrote
one
[“The
Main
Event”]:
in
1962
one
professional
boxer
killed
another,
in
the
ring,
on
live
TV.
The
victim,
Benny
“The
Kid”
Paret,
had
called
the
killer,
Emile
Griffith,
“a
maricón
/
Cuban
slang
for
‘faggot.’”
Griffith
would
later
“become
/
world
champ
four
more
times”;
he
was,
in
fact,
gay,
and
was
once
“beaten
almost
/
to
death
by
five
young
/
homophobes,
one
with
a
baseball
bat.”
If
you’re
wondering
why
there
should
be
narrative
poems
or
reported
stories
in
verse
even
today,
one
answer
is
that
stories
like
this
one
benefit
from
the
compression
of
verse,
its
ability
to
focus
on
single
phrases
and
words.
Another
answer
is
Platt’s
poem.
—Steph
Burt,
bostonreview.net/blog
This
poet
is
fearless.
“I
like
to
think.
.
.
.”
So
goes
the
first
line
of
Man
Praying
but
it’s
dreaming
at
stake
too,
a
man
dreaming
with
heart,
curiosity,
pain.
“The
days
are
one
thousand/
puzzle
pieces,”
the
poet
tells
us,
without
despair.
And
thus
these
rambling
meticulous
poems
open
to
the
world
grandly
and
in
the
smallest
ways—how
artists
see
(Rivera,
Caravaggio,
Mary
Hambleton,
Brancusi,
for
starters);
how
others
reinvent
the
body
(Nureyev,
boxers,
and
whoever
wrestles
like
Jacob
with
whatever
angel);
how
some
die
and
the
rest
of
us
survive,
for
now.
Which
is
to
say,
the
dead
and
the
living
walk
through
these
poems—father,
daughters,
all
family
as
guardians,
fellow
travelers,
radiant
lights.
Donald
Platt’s
rare
mix
of
story
sacred
and
profane
cut
with
lyric
discovery
fills
these
pages.
“Silence,
final
word,
sear
my
mouth,”
the
poet
says.
But
I
say:
Silence,
don’t
listen
to
him.
—Marianne
Boruch
FREE
VERSE
EDITIONS
Edited
by
Jon
Thompson
3015
Brackenberry
Drive
Anderson,
South
Carolina
29621
http://www.parlorpress.com
S
A
N:
2
5
4
–
8
8
7
9
ISBN
978-1-60235-882-9
Table of contents
- Front cover
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Eurydice in Hell
- Every Touch
- Offering Red
- Die Krüppelmappe
- Caravaggio’s Beheading of St. John the Baptist
- The Main Event
- Frozen Assets
- 23 Quai de Voltaire
- Christ’s Entry into Brussels in 1889
- One Page Torn from the Book of the Names of the Dead
- La Playa los Muertos
- Lighthouse Digest Doomsday List
- Playing Badminton with Eleanor
- Aubade with Foley Catheter
- Like Jacob at Peniel
- Fugitive Pigment
- The Davydov
- Notes
- Free Verse Editions
- About the Author
- Back cover