From the Meadow: Selected and New Poems

by Peter Everwine

"His poems are timeless, lyrical songs that transcend the dark forces of our society and call for a deeper understanding of our values. Becoming familiar again with old poems by a gifted master is like reliving the days when poetry truly came from the heart to ravish and define who we are." --Bloomsbury Review "These exquisite poems are so well paced that nothing ever seems forced or misplaced." --Library Journal "[Everwine] presents us with poetry in which each moment is recorded, laid bare, and sanctified, which is to say the poems posses a quality one finds only in the greatest poetry." --Ploughshares

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Peter Everwine was born in Detroit and raised in western Pennsylvania. He has published seven collections of poetry, including Listening Long and Late (2013), Figures Made Visible in the Sadness of Time (2003), and Collecting the Animals (1973), which won the Lamont Poetry Prize in 1972. In a review of the collection Keeping the Night, the editor of the Olives of Oblivion blog noted Everwine’s “uncanny ability to combine the abstract with the real” through his juxtaposition of “sparse style” and “dense images.”

He is the recipient of multiple awards and honors, including a Pushcart Prize, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among others. His poetry has been featured in the Paris Review, the American Poetry Review, and others. He also translates poetry from the Hebrew and Aztec languages.

He has taught at the California State University, Fresno, and Reed College. He lives in Fresno, California.

Reviews

[Josh Nisley · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable collection by a poet (one with Western PA roots) I didn’t know about until I picked this up at a local bookstore closeout sale. The poetry is spare, even hard edged at times, but with a distinct “undersong” (his word) of warmth and light. His lines on silence are especially luminous.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"There is in me, always,
you and the absence of you.

There is in me, always,
that road that leads to a field
of flowers we once knew

in that place where you were young,
there, where Memory keeps a life
of its own in the dark,

like a plant that waits patiently
year after year, asleep and folded inward
until the appointed night arrives

when it stirs and wakes
and opens out--O dream flowering!
Darkness flowering into darkness!--

forms, figures made visible
in the sadness of Time."

from "Elegiac Fragments"

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found most of the poems depressing but a few quite lyrical. Not enough for me to search out more of his work.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this poet thanks to Phillip Levine and his essays. Mixes the concrete and abstract very well. I really enjoy the freshness and the rhythm.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really beautiful book. If you read it all at once his marsh imagery can get a bit old, but mostly everything's lovely, and his death poems are especially fascinating.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full of magic and beauty. No amount of talking about it here could really do justice to its power. I'll definitely be adding this one to my permanent collection.