These Days

by Frederick Seidel

Poems consider Europe, espionage, the past, human sexuality, childhood, space, aging, and meaning

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published November 25, 1989

Reviews

[Samuel]

I'd never read any Seidel before picking this volume up at a library book sale. After finishing it...it's a hard one for me to evaluate. About half of it was technically very good, but not at all my style, a sort of rich-kid Bukowski as written by Robert Lowell. But then there were the pieces that made my jaw drop -- in particular, the echoing, poisonous "Elms," and what I'd consider the book's centerpiece, "The Blue-Eyed Doe," a terrifying poem that's somehow both fragmented and circular, with unsettling imagery that divides and recurs.

These Days isn't enough to make Seidel a poet whose complete works I feel like checking out, but I think I'll remember and return to the best poems here for a long, long time.

[Emily Colette Love]

Beautifully written. I think this is the kind of collection that finds you in chance. I don’t think you really look for it. I wept during “The Blue-Eyed Doe.”