Circumstances Beyond Our Control : Poems

Robert Phillips is a prominent member of America's neglected "transition generation" of poets -- those born in the late 1930s and early 1940s. His work has been included in many anthologies and textbooks. He gathers for his seventh full-length collection his best poems of the past six years, from dramatic monologues to personal lyrics. While most are free-verse, there are also sonnets, a villanelle, a ballade, an abecedarian, found poems, prose poems, haiku, clerihews, and a concrete poem on Anne Sexton's eyes. Divided into three sections -- "Fire and Obsession," "A Little Light Music," and "Rituals" -- this new volume reveals Phillips'... playfulness and good humor, his high intelligence, and his musicality.

Robert Phillips is a John and Rebecca Moores Professor at the University of Houston and literary executor of the American poets Delmore Schwartz and Karl Shapiro. His poetry has won an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Creative Artists' Public Service Award from New York State, and a Pushcart Prize, among others. His collection Breakdown Lane was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review.

Acknowledgments

xi

I FIRE & OBSESSION

The Ocean

3

(2)

Ghost Story

5

(1)

The Grown-up Train

6

(1)

An Empty Suit

7

(2)

Expulsion

9

(1)

The Snow Queen

10

(2)

Life Force

12

(1)

Homage: Neruda

13

(3)

Ode to a Banana

After Reading The Book of Questions

Variations on Vallejo's ``Black Stone on a White Stone''

16

(1)

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

17

(2)

Two Twentieth-Century American Monologues

19

(4)

Ted Bundy, Stalker Rapist

Texas Cheerleader Murder Plot

Famous Last Words

23

(1)

Endymion and Selene

24

(1)

My Funny Valentine

25

(2)

Two for Max Eberts

27

(1)

Blue Jay

Trees in Springtime

San Miguel de Allende

28

(7)

II A LITTLE LIGHT MUSIC

Memory

35

(1)

Life and Limb

36

(2)

Headlines

38

(1)

Miss Perfecto

39

(2)

Response to Barbara Walters' Most Fatuous Question

41

(2)

Soliloquy of the Ethiopian Eunuch

43

(6)

III RITUALS

Sunday Rituals

49

(2)

Two for Mister Roscoe

51

(3)

``Arsh Potatoes''

Grandfather's Cars

To a Schoolteacher Now Dead

54

(2)

Viewing

56

(1)

Two Sonnets

57

(2)

Her Life at Seven

Chance Encounter

Days of 1964

59

(2)

The Ruined Man

61

(2)

Bucolics

63

(2)

Mop and Nest

Wisteria and Fence

Insomnia

65

(1)

Two Adaptations from Red Pine

66

(1)

Waiting for a Friend

Parting from a Friend on a Night in Spring

Christopher Isherwood

67

(2)

Vita

69

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Circumstances Beyond Our Control : Poems

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

FREE SHIPPING

Rent More, Save More! Use code: BBRENTAL

5% off 1 book, 7% off 2 books, 10% off 3+ books

Circumstances Beyond Our Control : Poems

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

Digital License