Ultramarine: Poems
Carver's poignant, soul-searching mini-narratives about deathinterspersed with descriptions of natural beautyare a test of relationships between parents and between lovers, a projection of a shattered family of man onto a screen before which the poet stands angry and amazed. "Attached/ to this world by nothing more than hope," the poet confronts each poem's episode of pain buoyed up by "the workings of comfort." His mind dwells on varieties of humiliationhaving his eardrum broken by a frozen snowball, working in an autopsy room where a man's "vital organs/lay in a pan beside his head," having earwigs crawl out of a rum cake. Yet he is resolved not to despair but to see these events as a part of "So much that is mysterious . . . happening out there." Frank Allen, Assoc. Dean, Continuing Education, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa.Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.