Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue

by Ed Pavlić, Adrienne Rich (Introduction)

Winner of the APR/Honickman First Book. In her introduction Adrienne Rich describes Paraph of Bone & Other Kinds of Blue, as "a fully conceived book, speaking as a whole from the first lines to the last... Mr. Pavlic has listened closely to our most profound American art, the blues and jazz, and that music has not only helped him achieve poetic form but allowed him to explore a mesh of experience extraneous to literary theories... This is intimate and soulful work, breathing, brushing, and tonguing its instrument." In response to Charlie Parker's theory of art, "If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn," Ed Pavlic breathes exuberant life into his poetry through rigorous attention to overlapping facets of language—visual, tonal, rhythmic. from "Confessions of a Piano Roll Lover": & this new player,
he's just a boy. Well
drilled,
won't allow his thumb
to drag behind his
index
finger. Mistakes won't leave
exit wounds, or
bloom
in his lapel until
they're his alone. Grown.
With a pocket
Full of rock salt
in his gait, & jalapeño
beard. Ed Pavlic received his BA and MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a PhD from Indiana University. He currently teach in the English Department at Union College in Schenectady, NY. His work has appeared in African American Review, Doubletake, The Black Warrior Review and elsewhere. His critical book, Crossroads Descent and Emergence in African American Modernism is forthcoming in 2002. He lives in Schenectady, NY.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

About the author

Edward M. Pavlić

Reviews

[Craig Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyrical depth with jazz inflections. Paraph isn't an easy read, but it's worth the trips to the dictionary and reminders (if needed) of Monk, Sade, Seal, Phyllis Hyman, Bird, Donny Hathaway. At its best with the complexity of internal dynamics that shape responses to calls--musical and personal--and with the rhythms and flows of eros, bodily and psychic.

Favorite poems: Confessions of a Piano Roll Lover and 1955.

[J.R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly complex form.