Madame X

by William Logan

A new collection by one of our foremost masters of free verse as well as formal poetry.
 
The moody poems in Madame X , the author’s tenth collection, find their subjects in the byways of the past two centuries. Henry James visits his birthplace, the most beautiful woman in Europe ends up in a barrel at a fun fair, and a minor writer succumbs to tuberculosis at a German spa. In the title poem, the portrait of Madame X offers our century a lesson in seduction; but such public shows are balanced by poems of private desire, of whispers, of age, of the present always vanishing before us. These densely figured poems, rich in language and appointment, argue for a knowledge not sustained by the everyday. This is a triumphant collection of shimmering intensities and hard truths.
 
National Book Critics Circle Award winner William Logan is one of the most technically gifted poets of his generation; his work has frequently elicited comparison to W. H. Auden and Robert Lowell, and has been called brilliant, formidable, passionate, and cranky. Donald Hall has written of him that “he writes like an angel–an elegant, literary angel,” and Sven Birkerts has commented that “he is like the eel in the well–a purifying agent.” This new volume of fifty-four poems displays Logan’s trademark refinement and classicism.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 2012

About the author

William Logan is Alumni/ae Professor at the University of Florida. He is the author of seven books of criticism, most recently Dickinson’s Nerves, Frost’s Woods: Poetry in the Shadow of the Past (Columbia, 2018), and eleven books of poetry. Logan has won the inaugural Randall Jarrell Award in Poetry Criticism, the Aiken Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry, the Staige D. Blackford Prize for Nonfiction, the Allen Tate Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism.

Reviews

[Katy Langendoen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75⭐️

I really enjoyed this overall. I love when poetry feels impressionistic and I’m getting a sense of an emotion or moment instead of being told directly how to feel. And this work definitely achieved that! However, it went down a star bc it didn’t feel totally cohesive like I know and have read other poetry works to be. It swung back and forth between historical and current times and I think would’ve been a lot cooler if it were just the historical ones to show people like the titular Madame X in their element but defamiliaried for more. And yet showing the historical in contrast to the current did give me a lot of new realizations for our day and age and reminded me how easily we all forget and how often history then just repeats itself.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know why I find William Logan's poems so appealing. There's something about his manner, I suppose, his sense of humor combined with a sort of laid-back formalism. The subject matter in this book veers between quote-unquote personal poems and takes on the Gilded Age suggested by the title and John Singer Sargent's great painting on the cover -- the last and longest poem is an account of the death of Chekhov. There are also some good free translations from Sappho and a scene from the Iliad that owes a lot (and Logan acknowledges as much) to Christopher Logue.

If you pick this book up, don't be one of those people who skip past the front matter, because Logan gave it one of the finest epigraphs I've ever seen in a poetry collection. Juxtaposed with a dark passage from Moby Dick, we get a line spoken by Gregory Peck to Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday: "Keep your mind off the poetry and on the pajamas and everything will be all right."

[Margaryta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Madame X My favorites were the title poem "Madame X", "The Back of a Girl in Florence", "After Sappho 58", "Blues", and "A Death at Badenweiler".I love the atmosphere this poetry collection evoked. I was transported to Europe and my (occasional) 'homesickness' was thus satisfied. I was taken on a journey with this intricate collection of poems, witnessing the unfolding of nature and time before me, and becoming acquainted with a wide variety of people, either known or left unnamed. There were lines that made me smile or even chuckle while I was reading this on the subway, and even better is the fact that I bought this book super cheap at a bookstore sale. It's a beautiful find that I will keep revisiting while it sits on my shelf, waiting for me to return to it and once again immerse myself into a gilded world of autumn walks, museums, paintings, and sharp, witty knowledge.

[Ross Mccague · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished reading Madame X. I think this book has some of his best work. It's wide-ranging, technically varied and highly accomplished, and riveting. He has really come into his own. This work is equal to the best books published in Britain over the last few years, and ranks with Gjertrud Schnackenberg's work in America. It seems to be a leap forward from Strange Flesh.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing story of a mother's love. I could hardly put it down, and would like to read it again, as it was over 25 years ago when I last read this book.

[Mario · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half of these poems read like if Frederick Seidel wrote a crappy version of Alice Oswald's Memorial

[Hannah Nussbaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF
Couldn't get into it

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I can't say the poems weren't well-written, or that they were terrible, I do think this collection is overrated. I like several poems but I too often found myself getting rather bored. None of them had a lasting impression on me, or any impression at all--they simply had no impact. Even the form struck me as plain. The only poem that impresses me is the "Madame X" itself. Otherwise, I can't recall the titles of even those that I liked. The longer pieces felt too long, the shorter pieces too simple. Admittedly--and this is pretty funny--once I wondered if this guy was a professor of poetry at some elite university rather than a poet, so I read his bio to see if I was right. Either way, I'm not interested in reading more of Logan's work, after reading this mellow collection. The book's description uses the word "moody"; I didn't get the impression of "moodiness", it just sounded intellectual, which isn't always a bad thing but several times I put it down because of this tone.

However, I love how the poems were arranged, as well as the themes. I loved the two-line poems that start off each section. Also the poems aren't just different stories put together, but one big story with a lesson.

Overall, it took me a while to review this so I don't remember what I was going to say, but I remember semi-enjoying the book--loving the theme, loathing the execution.