The Apparitioners
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: Three Rail Press
Published: November 1, 2005
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 104
ISBN-13: 9780976047018
Subjects: American - General; Poetry
First sentence: There's something to be said for sitting still and letting things come clear, the way morning fog burns off the lake.
Description: "Mature in both voice and vision....The nature lyric is the art at which he excels, eschewing the traps of ego and shaping crystalline detail with the motion of thought in a style that evokes both A. R. Ammons and Robert Frost....There is much to recommend here." --Library Journal

"Witte's interest in casual American speech...suggest Robert Frost, while the austerity of his diction, and his more than passing interest in mortality, imply lessons learned from Anthony Hecht. His search for human lesson in gardens and fields, and his attraction to green retreats, even suggests Frost's sometime model Horace, who propounded wisdom from his Sabine farm." --Publishers Weekly

"Powerful...exquisite...brilliantly imagined....Witte's poetry is notable for its imagery, which is informed by the intense interest that is love." --Academia

"A genuine religious sensibility informs these poems, animated not by allegiance to doctrines, rituals, or commands, but rather by a sense of mystery.... If you read only one book of poems this year, make it this one." --Frank Wilson, The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Inspiring and complex...thought provoking." --Midwest Book Review

"The Apparitioners is George Witte's first book of poetry, but you would never guess it from his confident, ironic style, which moves easily from colloquial speech-rhythms to rich natural description....Like a Frost of the suburbs, Mr. Witte regards the cozy, domesticated landscape he inhabits with an unsettling lucidity, which gives everything he sees the aspect of a parable or a warning....Anyone who has felt intimations of mortality in our American abundance will recognize the power of Mr. Witte's poems." --Adam Kirsch, New York Sun

“In his first book, Witte has proved his ability as a story-teller, a keen observer of natural and social environments, and an intelligent commentator on our particular moment in history.” –Henry Hart, Verse

“…a serious and impressive debut….Reviewers have made comparisons between Witte and Frost; it seems too, that he shares some of Amy Clampitt’s proclivity for lush language, some of Larkin’s wry cynicism….I was impressed by the sense of craft, patience, and vision.” –Jessica Murray, Birmingham Poetry Review