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Anthropy
The poems in "Anthropy" fuse the scope of classical traditions to the disturbing agility of the moderns. Hsu artfully presents the fierce rigour of the philosophical mind engaged with the survival of histories.
"Anthropy," Ray Hsu's first book-length collection, is a work of extraordinary range and precision. Excavating sites of human cruelty and endurance, intimacy and experience, Hsu puts forth the language to lead us into the inferno of our time.
He brings us to a place where the living, the dead, and the imaginary cross paths. Odysseus meets Fernando Pessoa, James Dean meets Walter Benjamin. All struggle with the same problem: their pasts, visceral and desperate, continue to burn with the intensity of the present.
"Anthropy," Ray Hsu's first book-length collection, is a work of extraordinary range and precision. Excavating sites of human cruelty and endurance, intimacy and experience, Hsu puts forth the language to lead us into the inferno of our time.
He brings us to a place where the living, the dead, and the imaginary cross paths. Odysseus meets Fernando Pessoa, James Dean meets Walter Benjamin. All struggle with the same problem: their pasts, visceral and desperate, continue to burn with the intensity of the present.
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published September 30, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 29, 2022
Benjamin crouched beneath the rotting metal.
Here, there was no such thing
as brick. They had forgotten how wooden planks,
slatted together, made boxes,
made bricks. A city of wood could burn
to the violence of a fiddle.
But a city that forgot even brick misplaced even
crumbling. Glass too
he hid under, shivered.
Bombed out, discarded walls around him
blew finite rooms apart.
The entire place is losing its memory,
he crouched. The city the world. There is no map
that can hold a bomb.
A light searing through the air
passed him. Stopped on the twisted ribbons
of metal across. Up,
he followed the long cone to the
Zeppelin, strange and lazy above. Lying there,
haunting the sky.
Through the archways jagged with glass
he watched the huge
static clock face jut into the air. Clocks, like maps,
insisted.
Benjamin watched it become
the slowest thing in the world.
* * *
I recall the last interview I had with Walter, though there may be some parts I have repressed.
G: Jesus Christ, Walter.
W: I know.
G: Do you realize that selling your books matters little considering.
W: Of course I do. Of course.
G: You and Dora don't have enough to eat.
W: I know. I
G: Sell them. I'm going to sell them
W: Gerhardt
G: for you.
W: I need them.
G: Don't you don't need them all.
W:
G: Listen! You don't
W:
G:
W:
G:
W:
G:
W: Get
G:
W: Get out
G:
W:
* * *
When I saw my first James Dean
He was already dead. Already tragic.
The film is an extended funeral.
I fell for the race
He hurtled in. Left, against the door. Forward.
Did he also lean like that
In real life? Maybe he did before he died,
The car sliding under the trailer like a glass
Pane under a brick. How do you respond to a road
When the door is a heavy slab of metal,
Full of glass jigsaw, a serrated machine?
Signs lean like blank, stupid trees.
The engine is a heart,
A handful of nails.
* * *
The seedlings we had planted
east of the village were on fire
the day the Emperor spoke. We
tried to put out our roofs with water
from the river. This morning
we bring shrapnel
and the unexploded to the shrine
to see them whole. We hear
him as a man
for the first time. Very gradually
we hear our mistake. When you hear it
you hear it alone. A father, they say,
is habit, a god who dislikes
disorder.
Here, there was no such thing
as brick. They had forgotten how wooden planks,
slatted together, made boxes,
made bricks. A city of wood could burn
to the violence of a fiddle.
But a city that forgot even brick misplaced even
crumbling. Glass too
he hid under, shivered.
Bombed out, discarded walls around him
blew finite rooms apart.
The entire place is losing its memory,
he crouched. The city the world. There is no map
that can hold a bomb.
A light searing through the air
passed him. Stopped on the twisted ribbons
of metal across. Up,
he followed the long cone to the
Zeppelin, strange and lazy above. Lying there,
haunting the sky.
Through the archways jagged with glass
he watched the huge
static clock face jut into the air. Clocks, like maps,
insisted.
Benjamin watched it become
the slowest thing in the world.
- Benjamin: First Epilogue, pg. 13
* * *
I recall the last interview I had with Walter, though there may be some parts I have repressed.
G: Jesus Christ, Walter.
W: I know.
G: Do you realize that selling your books matters little considering.
W: Of course I do. Of course.
G: You and Dora don't have enough to eat.
W: I know. I
G: Sell them. I'm going to sell them
W: Gerhardt
G: for you.
W: I need them.
G: Don't you don't need them all.
W:
G: Listen! You don't
W:
G:
W:
G:
W:
G:
W: Get
G:
W: Get out
G:
W:
- Benjamin: Eighth Epilogue, pg. 23
* * *
When I saw my first James Dean
He was already dead. Already tragic.
The film is an extended funeral.
I fell for the race
He hurtled in. Left, against the door. Forward.
Did he also lean like that
In real life? Maybe he did before he died,
The car sliding under the trailer like a glass
Pane under a brick. How do you respond to a road
When the door is a heavy slab of metal,
Full of glass jigsaw, a serrated machine?
Signs lean like blank, stupid trees.
The engine is a heart,
A handful of nails.
- The Art of Being Photographed, pg. 32
* * *
The seedlings we had planted
east of the village were on fire
the day the Emperor spoke. We
tried to put out our roofs with water
from the river. This morning
we bring shrapnel
and the unexploded to the shrine
to see them whole. We hear
him as a man
for the first time. Very gradually
we hear our mistake. When you hear it
you hear it alone. A father, they say,
is habit, a god who dislikes
disorder.
- Our Master's Voice, pg. 48
June 3, 2008
one of my favorite collections of poetry. the nine epilogues that open the book are incredible, and "concordance" just might be my favorite poem ever.
April 28, 2014
incoherent dissertation. Don't waste your time on this.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews