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John Godfrey's masterful body of work has sustained its attentive, lovesick, unruly energy for over fifty years. The City Keeps brings together the best poems from his thirteen collections, plus some previously uncollected. "Dedicated to those who people the City of New York," Godfrey's work is populated, elusive, and geometric, but also full of tenderness and light.
With an enemy
like daylight who needs
the psychology dime
Hips do the work
and I cross the world
John Godfrey was born in Massena, N.Y. in 1945. He received an A.B. from Princeton University in 1967, and took a B.S. in Nursing from Columbia University in 1994. He has received fellowships from the General Electric Foundation (1984), the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2009), and the Z Foundation (2013). He retired in 2011 after 17 years as a nurse clinician in HIV/AIDS. He has lived in the East Village of Manhattan since the 1960s.
Price: $25.00
Pages: 304
Publisher: Wave Books
Imprint: Wave Books
Publication Date:
03 May 2016
Trim Size: 8.50 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781940696317
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
Godfrey remains open to the minute particularities and imaginative wanderings of everyday life—the multitude of wayward thoughts, musings and associations, the erogenous zone of thinking and looking.
—John Yau, Hyperallergic
His syntax, at once lightning fast and completely casual (like Patriots receiver Randy Moss), runs slant patterns across convention. He incorporates vernacular, he blows fuses on clichés, and he scalpels away bookkeeping words (as Pound called them) to jump-cut high energy, emotive phrasings.
—Forrest Gander, Harriet (The Poetry Foundation)
For my money, there’s no one writing better. I give away most of my books, but I won’t give this away.
—Alex Katz, in an interview by Amy Summerland, Boston Globe
Godfrey hands us great gifts of richly unpredictable language, “the power and felicity of pronouns,” an ever alert eye and ear, and a particular human life: these are made manifest and shared with elegance, integrity, and a seriousness always kept from descending to the obvious or solemn by the poet's tough and compassionate humor.
—Anselm Hollo
His genius rings true.
—Peter Gizzi
The combination of his gorgeous sentimentality and irresistible philosophical hauteur is like a cross between Latin music and Schopenhauer—simultaneously drawing us closer and further away—with a strong American conversational tone holding it together.
—Ron Padgett
—John Yau, Hyperallergic
His syntax, at once lightning fast and completely casual (like Patriots receiver Randy Moss), runs slant patterns across convention. He incorporates vernacular, he blows fuses on clichés, and he scalpels away bookkeeping words (as Pound called them) to jump-cut high energy, emotive phrasings.
—Forrest Gander, Harriet (The Poetry Foundation)
For my money, there’s no one writing better. I give away most of my books, but I won’t give this away.
—Alex Katz, in an interview by Amy Summerland, Boston Globe
Godfrey hands us great gifts of richly unpredictable language, “the power and felicity of pronouns,” an ever alert eye and ear, and a particular human life: these are made manifest and shared with elegance, integrity, and a seriousness always kept from descending to the obvious or solemn by the poet's tough and compassionate humor.
—Anselm Hollo
His genius rings true.
—Peter Gizzi
The combination of his gorgeous sentimentality and irresistible philosophical hauteur is like a cross between Latin music and Schopenhauer—simultaneously drawing us closer and further away—with a strong American conversational tone holding it together.
—Ron Padgett
John Godfrey was born in Massena, N.Y. in 1945. He received an A.B. from Princeton University in 1967, and took a B.S. in Nursing from Columbia University in 1994. He has received fellowships from the General Electric Foundation (1984), the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2009), and the Z Foundation (2013). He retired in 2011 after 17 years as a nurse clinician in HIV/AIDS. He has lived in the East Village of Manhattan since the 1960s.
from 26 Poems (Adventures in Poetry, 1971)
Touch
Sonnet
Poem
Sonnet
Rain Waste
First Taste
Month
The Works
Little Sister
Our Knees
Poem
from 3 Poems (Bouwerie Editions, 1973)
Love Knife
Radiant Dog
Gray Blazing Pit
from Music of the Curbs (Adventures in Poetry, 1976)
Equinox
Atlas
The Music of the Curbs
Morning Star
Come April
Idiots
Love Peon
La Gloire
Saint Augustine
Peaches
from Dabble (Full Court Press, 1982)
Schnapps Sonata
Dabble
Mirrors at Night
Poem
By Antique Vogues
Unholy Spring
Double Sonnet
Venus
Passive Aspic
Our Lady
For You
Wings
Eight-Aught
De Sica?
Astral Roulette
from Where the Weather Suits My Clothes (Z Press, 1984)
Yankee Green
Alto
Corpus Oration
The Eastern Desert
My Mother, Life
Bridge of Sand
Reveille
Look, You
Lachrymal Humidities
So Let’s Look at It Another Way
Where the Weather Suits My Clothes
from Midnight on Your Left (The Figures, 1988)
Patria
In Front of a Large Number of People
Fur
I Don’t Believe in Miracles
Late Show
Midnight On Your Left
Family Jewels
Savory Arrivals
Peon #117
Johnny Nash, Meet Johnny “G”
Bloody Dewlaps
Jaywalk
Endlessly
Pact
In the Chamber
The City Keeps
from Push the Mule (The Figures, 2001)
The Ticket
The Dream You Threw
At the Level of Heart
Waited For
Manger Lined with Fur
Kinds of Smoke
In Her Own Hand
Grasp Is Provide
The James Brother
Pouring Gulf
To Keep Saliva Warm
Unless You Tarry
from Private Lemonade (Adventures in Poetry, 2003)
Everything Beautiful
Shadow Feet
Disbelief
Private Lemonade
That Place Anymore
Rockin’
Bleach
Anywhere
Downy Skin
The Beautiful One
Front Seat
Knowhow
Pool Cake
It
Can’t Say
Protection
Dim, Dud
Dream Marble
Flakes
Food of Others
Parade
Slope
Whole
Heavy Building
Overlooked Nomads
Wavy
from City of Corners (Wave Books, 2008)
Waiting There
Comes with Galore
All the Hair
Starling
Convenience
Beat It
Silhouette
Straining to Hear
Floss at the Barbecue
Loops
Nearly Perfect
Newcomers
The One Who Turns
Any Country on Earth
Realm
Remedy
Get Help
The Signs
One Percent
from Singles and Fives (Fewer & Further Press, 2011)
Your Island
Where Else
Token Faux
Getting Tough
Can You Tell
Tell the Angels
At Second Glance
from Tiny Gold Dress (Lunar Chandelier Press, 2012)
Tiny Gold Dress
Black Lapel
Dispelling Face
Despite Murder
To You For By
The Urge
On Turbulence
Lip Read
So Real
Rain, Boy
Many Duets
Correct the Air
Betrays Nothing
Who’s Left
from Gold Stars Wet Hearts (Faux Press, 2014)
In Form of Seashell
Doubles
Headlight Tag
The Title
Gold Stars Wet Hearts
Got a Million
Assemble the Colors
A Hundred Feet
from Knee-length Black (Free Poetry: Boise State University, 2015)
After Quiddity
Red Tide
Which Next Minute
Box Set
Knee-length Black
Umbrella and Eyes
Uncollected Poems
Trip Wire
One Hand
Evidence
Fa-fa-fa
Load of Ice
Missing Planet
Touch
Sonnet
Poem
Sonnet
Rain Waste
First Taste
Month
The Works
Little Sister
Our Knees
Poem
from 3 Poems (Bouwerie Editions, 1973)
Love Knife
Radiant Dog
Gray Blazing Pit
from Music of the Curbs (Adventures in Poetry, 1976)
Equinox
Atlas
The Music of the Curbs
Morning Star
Come April
Idiots
Love Peon
La Gloire
Saint Augustine
Peaches
from Dabble (Full Court Press, 1982)
Schnapps Sonata
Dabble
Mirrors at Night
Poem
By Antique Vogues
Unholy Spring
Double Sonnet
Venus
Passive Aspic
Our Lady
For You
Wings
Eight-Aught
De Sica?
Astral Roulette
from Where the Weather Suits My Clothes (Z Press, 1984)
Yankee Green
Alto
Corpus Oration
The Eastern Desert
My Mother, Life
Bridge of Sand
Reveille
Look, You
Lachrymal Humidities
So Let’s Look at It Another Way
Where the Weather Suits My Clothes
from Midnight on Your Left (The Figures, 1988)
Patria
In Front of a Large Number of People
Fur
I Don’t Believe in Miracles
Late Show
Midnight On Your Left
Family Jewels
Savory Arrivals
Peon #117
Johnny Nash, Meet Johnny “G”
Bloody Dewlaps
Jaywalk
Endlessly
Pact
In the Chamber
The City Keeps
from Push the Mule (The Figures, 2001)
The Ticket
The Dream You Threw
At the Level of Heart
Waited For
Manger Lined with Fur
Kinds of Smoke
In Her Own Hand
Grasp Is Provide
The James Brother
Pouring Gulf
To Keep Saliva Warm
Unless You Tarry
from Private Lemonade (Adventures in Poetry, 2003)
Everything Beautiful
Shadow Feet
Disbelief
Private Lemonade
That Place Anymore
Rockin’
Bleach
Anywhere
Downy Skin
The Beautiful One
Front Seat
Knowhow
Pool Cake
It
Can’t Say
Protection
Dim, Dud
Dream Marble
Flakes
Food of Others
Parade
Slope
Whole
Heavy Building
Overlooked Nomads
Wavy
from City of Corners (Wave Books, 2008)
Waiting There
Comes with Galore
All the Hair
Starling
Convenience
Beat It
Silhouette
Straining to Hear
Floss at the Barbecue
Loops
Nearly Perfect
Newcomers
The One Who Turns
Any Country on Earth
Realm
Remedy
Get Help
The Signs
One Percent
from Singles and Fives (Fewer & Further Press, 2011)
Your Island
Where Else
Token Faux
Getting Tough
Can You Tell
Tell the Angels
At Second Glance
from Tiny Gold Dress (Lunar Chandelier Press, 2012)
Tiny Gold Dress
Black Lapel
Dispelling Face
Despite Murder
To You For By
The Urge
On Turbulence
Lip Read
So Real
Rain, Boy
Many Duets
Correct the Air
Betrays Nothing
Who’s Left
from Gold Stars Wet Hearts (Faux Press, 2014)
In Form of Seashell
Doubles
Headlight Tag
The Title
Gold Stars Wet Hearts
Got a Million
Assemble the Colors
A Hundred Feet
from Knee-length Black (Free Poetry: Boise State University, 2015)
After Quiddity
Red Tide
Which Next Minute
Box Set
Knee-length Black
Umbrella and Eyes
Uncollected Poems
Trip Wire
One Hand
Evidence
Fa-fa-fa
Load of Ice
Missing Planet