In the Western Night: Collected Poems, 1965-1990
In resourcefully inventive poems, Bidart confronts head-on the insoluble problems of being: the thirst for meaning, the fathomless abyss of death, the polarities of good and evil. Dramatic monologues wrest feverish, luminous meditations out of an anorectic, hospitalized poet ("Ellen West"), a sociopathic rapist/killer ("Herbert White") and a creative artist grappling with guilt, insanity, Nietzsche and the search for an authentic self ("The War of Vaslav Nijinsky"). Bidart also draws on wrenching autobiographical incident, Christian tradition, Western philosophy. "Golden State" evokes the anger, love and confusion occasioned by the death of his alcoholic father. A poet who believes the poem embodies "the mind in action," he synthesizes the flexibility of Pound's Cantos , Robert Lowell's sense of argument with the past, and Hart Crane's collage-like structuring into a distinctive, sharp-edged voice raised to an intense pitch.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.