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The One-Strand River: Poems, 1994-2007
Fourteen years after his last book of poems, we have a glorious new volume from Richard Kenney, who has been hailed by The New York Review of Books as “one of the most gifted and multifaceted and original of American poets.”
In The One-Strand River , Kenney has tales to tell—of loves, births, and confounding politics—in lively, quicksilver language that surprises at every turn. We meet the poet as a middle-aged husband walking the dog, confiding, “Churlish / thoughts bedevil me, often. Sunshine; girls / half my age; the future; unseen perishing / armies.” He swings between surreal dawn vistas and the unsettling sight of seventh-grade girls circling his teenage son; between the pleasure of a New Year’s celebration “with Nipperkin” and—striking a note that is rare in contemporary poetry—satirical attack, with an eye on the news of the day. A master of many tones, Kenney recalls a nursery rhyme in the title poem—“Gray goose and gander/ How long have we together?”—and ponders the “one-strand river” that is the sea, with its one encircling shore and its tidal pull on both the landscape and the human heart.
Kenney is never a confessional poet, yet we meet a powerful mind here—that of a man who is always responding to provocations seen and unseen, taking pleasure in the possibilities of words themselves, tossing them up into the daily storm of our vexations and our perilous happiness.
In The One-Strand River , Kenney has tales to tell—of loves, births, and confounding politics—in lively, quicksilver language that surprises at every turn. We meet the poet as a middle-aged husband walking the dog, confiding, “Churlish / thoughts bedevil me, often. Sunshine; girls / half my age; the future; unseen perishing / armies.” He swings between surreal dawn vistas and the unsettling sight of seventh-grade girls circling his teenage son; between the pleasure of a New Year’s celebration “with Nipperkin” and—striking a note that is rare in contemporary poetry—satirical attack, with an eye on the news of the day. A master of many tones, Kenney recalls a nursery rhyme in the title poem—“Gray goose and gander/ How long have we together?”—and ponders the “one-strand river” that is the sea, with its one encircling shore and its tidal pull on both the landscape and the human heart.
Kenney is never a confessional poet, yet we meet a powerful mind here—that of a man who is always responding to provocations seen and unseen, taking pleasure in the possibilities of words themselves, tossing them up into the daily storm of our vexations and our perilous happiness.
- GenresPoetry
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 29, 2008
3 people are currently reading
43 people want to read
About the author
Richard Kenney
34 books11 followersRichard L. Kenney (born 1948) is a poet and professor of English. Kenney and his family live in Port Townsend, Washington.
He is the author of four books of poetry: The Evolution of the Flightless Bird, Orrery, The Invention Of The Zero, and The One-Strand River: Poems, 1994-2007.
After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1970, Kenney won a Reynolds Fellowship and studied Celtic lore in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. He teaches in the English department at the University of Washington and has published in many magazines and journals, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and The American Scholar.
Drawing from many great writers and thinkers throughout time, Kenney often includes references to them in his works. James Merrill influenced him the most, and, fittingly so, his third book, The Invention of the Zero, is dedicated to him. Other notable influences include W.B. Yeats, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Lowell, and Philip Larkin.
Known for having an avalanching and original style, James Merrill best sums it up in his foreword to The Evolution of the Flightless Bird:
"The poetic wheels just spin and spin, getting nowhere fast. But Kenney--it's what one likes best about him--nearly always has an end in view, a story to tell."
He is the author of four books of poetry: The Evolution of the Flightless Bird, Orrery, The Invention Of The Zero, and The One-Strand River: Poems, 1994-2007.
After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1970, Kenney won a Reynolds Fellowship and studied Celtic lore in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. He teaches in the English department at the University of Washington and has published in many magazines and journals, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and The American Scholar.
Drawing from many great writers and thinkers throughout time, Kenney often includes references to them in his works. James Merrill influenced him the most, and, fittingly so, his third book, The Invention of the Zero, is dedicated to him. Other notable influences include W.B. Yeats, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Lowell, and Philip Larkin.
Known for having an avalanching and original style, James Merrill best sums it up in his foreword to The Evolution of the Flightless Bird:
"The poetic wheels just spin and spin, getting nowhere fast. But Kenney--it's what one likes best about him--nearly always has an end in view, a story to tell."
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 13, 2008
It's possible that I may be biased (I admit that I am married to this author), but I think it's a terrific read!
February 25, 2008
Going to Rick Kenney's reading at the Seattle Public Library tonight. I'm reading this new volume on my lunch break...it's a gorgeous book, in both the tactile and intellectual sense. So far, the poems exhibit RK's wide range of curiosities & conundrums: politics (the "rock-star" status of Donald Rumsfeld, for example), surrealism, the moon & other natural objects, burping his daughter at 2 a.m., etc. The poems are both clear & syntactically smart (often tricky!); the subjects are often funny/ironic but there are moments of heartbreak and poignancy as well; the careful attention paid to rhyme & meter allow the words to ring like bells.
July 31, 2008
I am in awe of the intelligence of these poems, but the ones that really get me are the clearly felt, strikingly sincere turns of mind with feeling. Thinking about feeling. That effect may well be predicated on the intellectualism of many of the poems, cannot be separated, perhaps. But, as in "Pathetic Fallacy," so, so beautiful regardless.
September 16, 2008
Gorgeous Lyricism.
January 7, 2012
Haven't actually read every single poem in this, but that's often the way it goes with this kind of book. Good stuff here.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews