The Poetry of Solitude: A Tribute to Edward Hopper
Hopper's lushly rendered, enigmatic paintings are studies in solitude and the emotions that state can arouse. Hopper scholar Levin, author of the revelatoryEdward Hopper: An Intimate Biography, has long recognized the poetics and implied narratives of Hopper's provocative paintings, as have a number of admiring poets. In this beautiful and thoughtful little volume, color reproductions of Hopper's paintings are matched with the poems they've inspired. This juxtaposition works well as word and image play in stirring counterpoint. The workings of the poets' minds seem somehow more revealed than usual as the object of their scrutiny is so readily at hand, while the rich nuances of Hopper's haunting compositions are intensified as the reader-viewer compares his or her own interpretations with those of the poets. Levin has collected poems by John Updike, Lawrence Raab, Stephen Dunn, John Hollander, Joyce Carol Oates, Edward Hirsch, Grace Schulman, and Sue Standing, among others, to accompany a set of now classic Hopper paintings.Donna Seaman