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The Dead Alive and Busy

In his sixth book of poems, Alan Shapiro once again shows that he is a master at articulating the secrets of the heart. The Dead Alive and Busy deals with issues of personal identity as revealed through examining the intimate bonds of family life. The poems explore these familial relations in terms of the religious, social, and literary contexts that inform them, delving into such universal themes as human frailty, illness and death, bereavement, and thwarted desires. By turns lyrical and narrative, slangy and elevated, analytical and visionary, this collection showcases one of America’s most important poets in his top form.

Praise for Alan Shapiro: "Shapiro is a shrewd and sympathetic moralist. He never trivializes his subjects with high-minded flourishes or stylistic gimmicks."—J. D. McClatchy, New York Times Book Review

Read an excerpt.


89 pages | 6-1/8 x 8-1/2 | © 2000

Phoenix Poets

Poetry

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
I.
Old Joke
On Men Weeping
New Year’s Eve in the Aloha Room
Vase of Flowers
Feet
Aphrodite
The Bath
Worm
The Sanctuary
Hallway
Hermes
Departure
The Dawn Walkers
II.
After the Hurricane
Interstate
The Naked Eye
Furies
Invisible Termini
What
Abraham and Isaac
The Coat
Bedtime Story, 1979
Calypso, Penelope
The Singer
Thrush in Summer
The Beach Chair
Ghost
Dream of the Dead
III.
Scree
Hand
Air
Rose
Revenant
The Table
The Summoning
Scarecrow

Awards

The Claremont Graduate School: Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
Won

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