Description: An accomplished poet and a keen observer of the human condition, David Slavitt deploys both skills to create the whimsical, insightful, and witty poems of The Octaves. In these graceful but often blunt, slyly humorous eight-line poems, Slavitt notes the passing of decades and the loss that entails, the questions that arise when studying works from ancient Greece, and the paradoxes found in philosophy, art, and even the common cold.
Brief description: David R. Slavitt has published 130 books of poetry, fiction, and translation. Born in White Plains, New York, and educated at Andover, Yale, and Columbia, Slavitt has worked at Newsweek and taught at Temple University, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, and Bennington College.