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Good book in acceptable condition. Spine has been taped.
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published November 1, 1985
18 people want to read
About the author
William Carpenter
151 books10 followersWilliam Carpenter is the author of three books of poetry, and two novels.
Born and raised in New England, he earned his B.A. from Dartmouth and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He began publishing poetry in 1976, and won the Associated Writing Program’s Contemporary Poetry Award in 1980. In 1985 he received the Samuel French Morse Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts grant.
Born and raised in New England, he earned his B.A. from Dartmouth and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He began publishing poetry in 1976, and won the Associated Writing Program’s Contemporary Poetry Award in 1980. In 1985 he received the Samuel French Morse Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts grant.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 11, 2008
this is one of my favorite collections of poetry. it's hard to find, and not many people have heard of bill. his poems are amazing: funny, intelligent, allusive, wonderfully odd.
get your mits on a copy, poets and prose writers, readers who want poetry that will crawl inside your head and stay with you.
from his web site:
GIRL WRITING A LETTER
by William Carpenter
A thief drives to the museum in his black van. The night
watchman says Sorry, closed, you have to come back tomorrow.
The thief sticks the point of his knife in the guard's ear.
I haven't got all evening, he says, I need some art.
Art is for pleasure, the guard says, not possession, you can't
something, and then the duct tape is going across his mouth.
Don't worry, the thief says, we're both on the same side.
He finds the Dutch Masters and goes right for a Vermeer:
"Girl Writing a Letter." The thief knows what he's doing.
He has a Ph.D. He slices the canvas on one edge from
the shelf holding the salad bowls right down to the
square of sunlight on the black and white checked floor.
The girl doesn't hear this, she's too absorbed in writing
her letter, she doesn't notice him until too late. He's
in the picture. He's already seated at the harpsichord.
He's playing the G Minor Sonata by Domenico Scarlatti,
which once made her heart beat till it passed the harpsichord
and raced ahead and waited for the music to catch up.
She's worked on this letter for three hundred and twenty years.
Now a man's here, and though he's dressed in some weird clothes,
he's playing the harpsichord for her, for her alone, there's no one
else alive in the museum. The man she was writing to is dead --
time to stop thinking about him -- the artist who painted her is dead.
She should be dead herself, only she has an ear for music
and a heart that's running up the staircase of the Gardner Museum
with a man she's only known for a few minutes, but it's
true, it feels like her whole life. So when the thief
hands her the knife and says you slice the paintings out
of their frames, you roll them up, she does it; when he says
you put another strip of duct tape over the guard's mouth
so he'll stop talking about aesthetics, she tapes him, and when
the thief puts her behind the wheel and says, drive, baby,
the night is ours, it is the Girl Writing a Letter who steers
the black van on to the westbound ramp for Storrow Drive
and then to the Mass Pike, it's the Girl Writing a Letter who
drives eighty miles an hour headed west into a country
that's not even discovered yet, with a known criminal, a van
full of old masters and nowhere to go but down, but for the
Girl Writing a Letter these things don't matter, she's got a beer
in her free hand, she's on the road, she's real and she's in love.
get your mits on a copy, poets and prose writers, readers who want poetry that will crawl inside your head and stay with you.
from his web site:
GIRL WRITING A LETTER
by William Carpenter
A thief drives to the museum in his black van. The night
watchman says Sorry, closed, you have to come back tomorrow.
The thief sticks the point of his knife in the guard's ear.
I haven't got all evening, he says, I need some art.
Art is for pleasure, the guard says, not possession, you can't
something, and then the duct tape is going across his mouth.
Don't worry, the thief says, we're both on the same side.
He finds the Dutch Masters and goes right for a Vermeer:
"Girl Writing a Letter." The thief knows what he's doing.
He has a Ph.D. He slices the canvas on one edge from
the shelf holding the salad bowls right down to the
square of sunlight on the black and white checked floor.
The girl doesn't hear this, she's too absorbed in writing
her letter, she doesn't notice him until too late. He's
in the picture. He's already seated at the harpsichord.
He's playing the G Minor Sonata by Domenico Scarlatti,
which once made her heart beat till it passed the harpsichord
and raced ahead and waited for the music to catch up.
She's worked on this letter for three hundred and twenty years.
Now a man's here, and though he's dressed in some weird clothes,
he's playing the harpsichord for her, for her alone, there's no one
else alive in the museum. The man she was writing to is dead --
time to stop thinking about him -- the artist who painted her is dead.
She should be dead herself, only she has an ear for music
and a heart that's running up the staircase of the Gardner Museum
with a man she's only known for a few minutes, but it's
true, it feels like her whole life. So when the thief
hands her the knife and says you slice the paintings out
of their frames, you roll them up, she does it; when he says
you put another strip of duct tape over the guard's mouth
so he'll stop talking about aesthetics, she tapes him, and when
the thief puts her behind the wheel and says, drive, baby,
the night is ours, it is the Girl Writing a Letter who steers
the black van on to the westbound ramp for Storrow Drive
and then to the Mass Pike, it's the Girl Writing a Letter who
drives eighty miles an hour headed west into a country
that's not even discovered yet, with a known criminal, a van
full of old masters and nowhere to go but down, but for the
Girl Writing a Letter these things don't matter, she's got a beer
in her free hand, she's on the road, she's real and she's in love.
August 15, 2014
I picked up this book purely by chance on a $1 throwaway cart. Such discoveries are what always lead me to gravitate to used book stores, garage sales, things of that nature.
This sort of incidentalness happens to course through these poems as well. What appear to be simple descriptions are made into deep, casually fantastical observations of life and all the peculiar situations in which it often finds itself. Though the poems are grounded in reality, there is a magical sense of deja vu in each piece. There are motifs of capricious loves and inscrutable artists and time spent not sure doing what. The set is almost always a misty New England backdrop. I'd have to say, one of the finest collections I've ever read.
This sort of incidentalness happens to course through these poems as well. What appear to be simple descriptions are made into deep, casually fantastical observations of life and all the peculiar situations in which it often finds itself. Though the poems are grounded in reality, there is a magical sense of deja vu in each piece. There are motifs of capricious loves and inscrutable artists and time spent not sure doing what. The set is almost always a misty New England backdrop. I'd have to say, one of the finest collections I've ever read.
July 8, 2008
All I can say is that this guy should write more poetry. This has got to be the most exciting debut book of poetry I've ever read -- wild, startling, vivid -- and now Carpenter basically only writes fiction. Come on back, Carpenter!
November 26, 2021
Narrative poetry at its best.
Favorites Poems:
“At the Foxtrot Motel”
“Early Sunday Morning”
“The Red Devil”
“The Later Poetry”
“An Airport in Puerto Rico”
“Open Heart”
Favorites Poems:
“At the Foxtrot Motel”
“Early Sunday Morning”
“The Red Devil”
“The Later Poetry”
“An Airport in Puerto Rico”
“Open Heart”
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews