Description:
This latest book by Jonas Zdanys presents lyrical narrative poems that speak through vivid multi-sensual imagery and the textured language of a master poet to present a resonant interplay of poetry and painting. Written in the galleries of the New Britain Museum of American Art, the poems in this volume are not just commentaries on the framed works in those galleries. They are, most essentially, expressions of the poet's commitment to hear and to extend the stories those paintings tell, and to do so by creating parallel texts in these pages -- paintings in words that absorb and expand the paintings in pigments. This book is a masterful example of ekphrasis at its best -- a mature aesthetic vision, a chronicle of what the poet has seen and imagined at the Museum, presented through varied perspectives and voices.
Brief description: Jonas Zdanys is the author of fifty-five other books. They include collections of his poetry written in English or in Lithuanian and volumes of his translations into English of Lithuanian poetry and fiction. He is also editor of several anthologies, among them collections of found poetry, epistolary poetry, and, most recently, contemporary surrealist and magical realist poetry. He serves currently as Poet in Residence and Professor Emeritus of English at Sacred Heart University.