Keynote
“Fred Marchant teaches and awakens the soul.”—Maxine Hong Kingston
Book Title
Said Not Said
Subtitle
Poems
Cover Image
- “Fred Marchant demonstrates how poetry provides a crucial outlet—and perhaps some catharsis—in response to the inequities or cruelties of life.”—Washington Post
Poem Excerpt
someone in Benghazi with a hose in one hand
uses his free one to wipe down the corpse
water flows over the body and down
a tilted steel tray toward the drain
what washes off washes off
— “Below the Fold”
uses his free one to wipe down the corpse
water flows over the body and down
a tilted steel tray toward the drain
what washes off washes off
— “Below the Fold”
Body
In this important and formally inventive new poetry collection, Fred Marchant brings us into realms of the intractable and the unacceptable, those places where words seem to fail us and yet are all we have. In the process he affirms lyric poetry’s central role in the contemporary moral imagination. As National Book Award winner David Ferry describes, “The poems in this beautiful new book by Fred Marchant are autobiographical, but, as is always the case with his poems, autobiographical of how he has witnessed, with faithfully exact and pitying observation, the sufferings in the lives of other people, for example the heartbreaking series of poems about the fatal mental suffering of his sister, and the poems about other peoples, in Vietnam, in the Middle East, written about with the noble generosity of feeling that has always characterized his work, here more impressively even than before.”
Said Not Said is a poet’s taking stock of conscience, his country’s and his own, and of poetry’s capacity to speak to what matters most.
Said Not Said is a poet’s taking stock of conscience, his country’s and his own, and of poetry’s capacity to speak to what matters most.
List Price
$16.00
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About the Author
Credit: Stefi Rubin
Praise
- “[Said Not Said] examines the necessities of life and survival in a world ravaged by war, violence, illness and political corruption.”—The Brooklyn Rail
- “[Said Not Said] is an eloquent engagement with a history we will always need to understand better, as we make collective effort to bend toward justice. Fred Marchant is a blessed, vital part of that task.”—The Rumpus
- “Marchant displays an unflinching tenderness in a collection of sonically and architecturally precise poems. . . . [A] beautiful, elegiac collection.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
- “[A] sublime and subtle collection. . . . Marchant is at his finest when he blends everyday reflection and curious erudition, both of which he delivers in equal measure.”—Booklist
