Little Kisses

Paper $18.00 ISBN: 9780226458274 Published April 2017

E-book $10.00 to $18.00 About E-books ISBN: 9780226458304 Published April 2017

Called “the master of the poetic one-liner” by the New York Times, acclaimed poet and critic Lloyd Schwartz takes his characteristic tragicomic view of life to some unexpected and disturbing places in this, his fourth book of poetry. Here are poignant and comic poems about personal loss—the mysterious disappearance of his oldest friend, his mother’s failing memory, a precious gold ring gone missing—along with uneasy love poems and poems about family, identity, travel, and art with all of its potentially recuperative power. Humane, deeply moving, and curiously hopeful, these poems are distinguished by their unsentimental but heartbreaking tenderness, pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, formal surprises, and exuberant sense of humor.

Table of Contents

Contents
Review Quotes

Contents

Acknowledgments
Little Kisses
My Other Grandmother
Lost Causes
*
The Conductor
Goldring
City of Dreams
*
Dreams
Crossword
Six Words
Is Light Enough?
New Name
La Valse
Howl
*
Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna: Music for My Ashes

Two Mineiro Poems on the Love of Death
Music for My Ashes
Getting Ready the House
They Are Moving Along

Viktor Neborak: Fish
Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna: Tehran Spring

On the Rooftops of Iran
Zayande (“The One Who Gives Life”)
Tehran Spring

*
If You Lived Here You’d Be Home Now
Small Airport in Brazil
In Flight
Cut-Up
To My Oldest Friend, Whose Silence Is Like a Death
Two Plays
Jerry Garcia in a Somerville Parking Lot

Notes

Review Quotes

Boston Globe

"There’s a dreaminess to the collection...the sense of conversations with people from prior parts of life in moments just before waking."

The Arts Fuse

"In his poetry, Schwartz creates a warm and likable persona who uses verse as a means of dealing with a difficult world. Reading Little Kisses is reassuring – and that is a valuable attribute given the times we are living in."

Consequence Magazine

“Despite the sometimes-grave themes, [the collection] is uplifting and joyous. All in all, it is a very lively mix of poems that move with subtlety, wisdom, good humor, and sly erudition. There is great musicality here and lots of rewarding lyrical surprises.”

Roger Rosenblatt

“A major poet with a gentle, comic soul”

For more information, or to order this book, please visit https://press.uchicago.edu

Literature and Literary Criticism: American and Canadian Literature

Poetry

You may purchase this title at these fine bookstores. Outside the USA, see our international sales information.

Chicago Manual of Style