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The Old Language: Poems on the Company of Animals
A collection of poems reflecting on the companionship of humans and non-humans; a tribute to animals who have been part of the author's family; a meditation on "The Old Language," the nonverbal ways that humans and non-humans talk to each other.
"This work is mature, the writing brilliant and rich and deep, the content charged with energy. This is an incredible writer, one with a deep and wide scope of vision." Linda Hogan, novelist; poet, author of Rounding the Human Poems and People of the A Novel "[Douglas Nicholas has a] quality which I find very engaging, namely, a kind of urban gaslight aura which manages to be new/old simultaneously. This is dense stuff . . . this work requires a slow pace. Take the poem ['A Calling-Up Song'], for instance; I could see teaching this one to a class for a week or more and still not finishing with its various resonances. . . . "I have been reading Douglas Nicholas's poems for some time now, and always with increasing pleasure. Perhaps their greatest virtue is their inclusivity, for these are poems of color, detail and texture. At a time when far too many poets are justifying their metabolic deficiencies in the name of Minimalism, Nicholas is striding the landscape as vigorously as Whitman ever did. He's a Maximalist, in my book, and we the readers are the better for it. A Nicholas poem is always a feast. . . ." David Kirby, Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English, FSU; poetry reviewer, The New York Times Book Review; poet, author of The Temple Gate Called Beautiful and The House on Boulevard Street
"This work is mature, the writing brilliant and rich and deep, the content charged with energy. This is an incredible writer, one with a deep and wide scope of vision." Linda Hogan, novelist; poet, author of Rounding the Human Poems and People of the A Novel "[Douglas Nicholas has a] quality which I find very engaging, namely, a kind of urban gaslight aura which manages to be new/old simultaneously. This is dense stuff . . . this work requires a slow pace. Take the poem ['A Calling-Up Song'], for instance; I could see teaching this one to a class for a week or more and still not finishing with its various resonances. . . . "I have been reading Douglas Nicholas's poems for some time now, and always with increasing pleasure. Perhaps their greatest virtue is their inclusivity, for these are poems of color, detail and texture. At a time when far too many poets are justifying their metabolic deficiencies in the name of Minimalism, Nicholas is striding the landscape as vigorously as Whitman ever did. He's a Maximalist, in my book, and we the readers are the better for it. A Nicholas poem is always a feast. . . ." David Kirby, Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English, FSU; poetry reviewer, The New York Times Book Review; poet, author of The Temple Gate Called Beautiful and The House on Boulevard Street
50 pages, Paperback
First published February 5, 2011
9 people want to read
About the author
Douglas Nicholas
12 books95 followersDouglas Nicholas is an award-winning poet whose work has appeared in numerous publications, among them Atlanta Review, Southern Poetry Review, Sonora Review, Circumference, A Different Drummer, and Cumberland Review, as well as the South Coast Poetry Journal, where he won a prize in that publication's Fifth Annual Poetry Contest.
Other awards include Honorable Mention in the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation 2003 Prize For Poetry Awards, second place in the 2002 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards from PCCC, International Merit Award in Atlanta Review's Poetry 2002 competition, finalist in the 1996 Emily Dickinson Award in Poetry competition, honorable mention in the 1992 Scottish International Open Poetry Competition, first prize in the journal Lake Effect's Sixth Annual Poetry Contest, first prize in poetry in the 1990 Roberts Writing Awards, and finalist in the Roberts short fiction division.
He was also recipient of an award in the 1990 International Poetry Contest sponsored by the Arvon Foundation in Lancashire, England, and a Cecil B. Hackney Literary Award for poetry from Birmingham-Southern College. He lives in New York City and the Hudson Valley with his wife, Theresa, and Yorkshire terrier, Tristan.
Other awards include Honorable Mention in the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation 2003 Prize For Poetry Awards, second place in the 2002 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards from PCCC, International Merit Award in Atlanta Review's Poetry 2002 competition, finalist in the 1996 Emily Dickinson Award in Poetry competition, honorable mention in the 1992 Scottish International Open Poetry Competition, first prize in the journal Lake Effect's Sixth Annual Poetry Contest, first prize in poetry in the 1990 Roberts Writing Awards, and finalist in the Roberts short fiction division.
He was also recipient of an award in the 1990 International Poetry Contest sponsored by the Arvon Foundation in Lancashire, England, and a Cecil B. Hackney Literary Award for poetry from Birmingham-Southern College. He lives in New York City and the Hudson Valley with his wife, Theresa, and Yorkshire terrier, Tristan.
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November 6, 2013
I bought this volume because I read the author's Something Red and I wanted more. I felt a profound resonance to the animals we live with in his portrayals in the novel and when I opened the slim volume The Old Language, I stood outside in the sunlight of my yard and read every poem until I had read them all. I can't articulate all of my feelings. I am moved. I find his depiction of his relationship with his wife, his intimate partner, slipped in between the lines so moving, so warm and familiar. For I too, have a spouse who is an unfailing source of compassion and wonder to me. I am sorrowed past weeping by the loss of his parrot, the loss of a dog. He has the ability to pare feeling down to the essential turning point, the point of pain or of joy, each so acute, they cut.
I feel embarrassed to give so many stars as though I had not thought but done a knee-jerk positive. Please believe me that these are poems you want to read if you want to sink into the contemplation of our animal humanity, our friendships that transgress more than language, that bridge even the imprint of our animal descent.
I feel embarrassed to give so many stars as though I had not thought but done a knee-jerk positive. Please believe me that these are poems you want to read if you want to sink into the contemplation of our animal humanity, our friendships that transgress more than language, that bridge even the imprint of our animal descent.
Displaying 1 of 1 review