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Walking through the Horizon

More UA Press Poetry Series winners

The First Inhabitants of ArcadiaThe First Inhabitants of Arcadia
Poems by Christopher Bursk

Delves into the mysteries inherent in the alphabet

The UA Press Poetry Series

Read "Ode to j"


Herman Melville, Matthew Arnold, Sarah Orne Jewett, Dusty Rhodes, and Hoyt Wilhelm skinny-dip and pick up gondoliers and cut figure eights into the ice in Christopher Bursk’s new collection. But the main cast of characters for these poems is the alphabet itself, “the first inhabitants of Arcadia, / now homesick, curious exiles from Eden.” Here are a boy’s first investigations into the nature of language as he studies the backs of baseball cards, and a young man’s infatuation with the “F-word.” The titles sing their lettered songs: “An Ode to j,” “M-m-m Good!” and “O in Trouble.”

Here are “reading lessons,” the author’s exploration of the curses and blessings of the word. It is about the fall from paradise and the gifts that fall makes possible. And over the whole book broods the great lexicographer, Samuel Johnson, that deeply troubled caretaker of the mother tongue. More than an ABC book, this collection asks questions at the very heart of how we understand the world and shows us the glory and silliness at the heart of human life.


“Chris Bursk honors the human spirit without ignoring the destructive forces around us. What’s more, he does it with language that never alters. How much I admire his intelligent, elegant, and deeply compassionate work.”

— Sy Safransky, editor, The Sun

“In these lively and moving poems, Bursk implicates English itself in his coming-of-age conflicts. And what Bursk humorously wishes in his lyric about ‘suffixes and prefixes’ is true—he is ‘Irreplaceable, / incomparable, indispensable.’

— Philip Fried, editor, Manhattan Review

“Armed with a refreshing sense of play and an eye for the luminous moment, Bursk is one of our best practitioners of the narrative poem. Yet he is also wonderfully lyrical: his language is honed and hits you where you live.”

— Steven Huff, author of The Water We Came From


March
136 pages
5 1/2" x 8 1/2"
$16.00 Paper
ISBN-10: 1-55728-813-5
ISBN-13: 978-1-55728-813-4

Christopher Bursk, recipient of NEA, Guggenheim, and Pew fellowships, is professor of English at Bucks County Community College in Pennsylvania. He is the author of a number of collections, including Cell Count, Ovid at Fifteen, and The Improbable Swervings of Atoms, winner of the 2004 Donald Hall Prize in Poetry. He has been recognized for his work with prisoners, the homeless, food banks, and women’s shelters.


Ode to j

just as often bouncing a little ball
               off its nose,
          as about to e-
ject from its seat, it teaches the frogs to
               jet-propel off
          their lily pads, the pond to
jitterbug, the rain to
               appreciate its own
     jive, the storm to stop apolo-
gizing. By junior high I’d tired
               of words, their bullying
          justifications, glittering
generalities. I’d forgotten
               about the revelry
          certain letters enga-
ge in, their jujitsu, jam sessions, juicy
               stories, the secret
          pleasures of jealousy
and bad jokes. How could I give up hope
               in a world where
          j‘s the silent letter in mari-
juana? It jostles. It jars.
               What’s a kid to do
          but take all the
joy he can, light up a joint,
               jack off,
          jiggle the brain,
jolt the body? Juggler, jester,
               renegade i,
          the alphabet’s adopted child,
j’s got the tongue talking
               to the roof of the mouth,
          a new kind of
justice, something as common
               as air
          turned into
jubilation. The brain
               has precious few
          pleasures and j,
jocund, jaunty
               j, is one of them.

 

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