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Double Shadow: Poems
A stunning new collection of poems from the author of Speak Low
Comparing any human life to "a restless choir" of impulses variously in conflict and at peace with one another, Carl Phillips, in his eleventh book, examines the double shadow that a life casts forth: "now risk, and now / faintheartedness." In poems that both embody and inhabit this double shadow, risk and faintheartedness prove to have the power equally to rescue us from ourselves and to destroy us. Spare, haunted, and haunting, yet not without hope, Double Shadow argues for life as a wilderness through which there's only the questing forward—with no regrets and no looking back.
Double Shadow is a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry
Winner of the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry
A Boston Globe Best Poetry Book of 2011
- GenresPoetry
72 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 15, 2011
3 people are currently reading
239 people want to read
About the author
Carl Phillips
88 books206 followersCarl Phillips is the highly acclaimed author of 10 collections of poetry.
He was born in 1959 to an Air Force family, who moved regularly throughout his childhood, until finally settling in his high-school years at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He holds degrees from Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Boston University and taught high-school Latin for eight years.
His first book, In the Blood, won the 1992 Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize and was heralded as the work of an outstanding newcomer in the field of contemporary poetry. His other books are Cortège (1995), a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry; From the Devotions (1998), a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry; Pastoral (2000), winner of the Lambda Literary Award; The Tether, (2001), winner of the prestigious Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Rock Harbor (2002); The Rest of Love: Poems, a 2004 National Book Award finalist, for which Phillips also won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Foundation Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Male Poetry; Riding Westward (2006); Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems, 1986-2006 (2007); and Speak Low (2009), a 2009 National Book Award finalist. Two additional titles were published in the 2003-04 academic year: a translation of Sophocles' Philoctetes came out in September 2003, and a book of essays, Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry, was published in May 2004. Phillips is the recipient of, among others, a literature award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Witter Bynner Foundation Fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, and the Academy of American Poets Prize. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Yale Review, as well as in anthologies, including eight times in the Best American Poetry series, The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997, and The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poets. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004 and elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2006. He is a Professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also teaches in the Creative Writing Program.
He was born in 1959 to an Air Force family, who moved regularly throughout his childhood, until finally settling in his high-school years at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He holds degrees from Harvard University, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Boston University and taught high-school Latin for eight years.
His first book, In the Blood, won the 1992 Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize and was heralded as the work of an outstanding newcomer in the field of contemporary poetry. His other books are Cortège (1995), a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lambda Literary Award in Poetry; From the Devotions (1998), a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry; Pastoral (2000), winner of the Lambda Literary Award; The Tether, (2001), winner of the prestigious Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Rock Harbor (2002); The Rest of Love: Poems, a 2004 National Book Award finalist, for which Phillips also won the Theodore Roethke Memorial Foundation Poetry Prize and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Male Poetry; Riding Westward (2006); Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems, 1986-2006 (2007); and Speak Low (2009), a 2009 National Book Award finalist. Two additional titles were published in the 2003-04 academic year: a translation of Sophocles' Philoctetes came out in September 2003, and a book of essays, Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry, was published in May 2004. Phillips is the recipient of, among others, a literature award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Witter Bynner Foundation Fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, and the Academy of American Poets Prize. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in such publications as The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Yale Review, as well as in anthologies, including eight times in the Best American Poetry series, The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997, and The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poets. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004 and elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2006. He is a Professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, where he also teaches in the Creative Writing Program.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
April 3, 2019
I have to admit, I have a love-hate relationship with Carl Phillips’ poetry. I already have read four of his collection namely: Tether, Speak Low, Double Shadow and Riding Westward. I adored Speak Low and Double Shadow, however Tether and Riding Westward didn’t connect to me the way poetry should. Half of the time I have no idea what he was talking about, sometimes it felt like they are all just words all jumbled into one poem, but there are also times that his poetry leaves me in awe – just like his poems here in this collection. Double Shadow is lyrical and haunting. It is about life’s contrasts, of how two shadows are cast from one origin.
Here is a favorite poem from this collection:
Clear, Cloudless
Tonight – in the foundering night, at least,
of imagination, where what I don’t in fact
believe anymore, all the same, is true –
the stars look steadily down upon me. I look
ip, at the stars. Life as a recklessly fed bonfire
growing unexpectedly more reckless seems
neither the best or worst of several choices
within reach, still. I wear on my head a crown
of feathers – among which, sure, I have had my favorites.
Fear, though, is the bluest feather,
and it is easily the bluest feather that the wind loves most.
Here is a favorite poem from this collection:
Clear, Cloudless
Tonight – in the foundering night, at least,
of imagination, where what I don’t in fact
believe anymore, all the same, is true –
the stars look steadily down upon me. I look
ip, at the stars. Life as a recklessly fed bonfire
growing unexpectedly more reckless seems
neither the best or worst of several choices
within reach, still. I wear on my head a crown
of feathers – among which, sure, I have had my favorites.
Fear, though, is the bluest feather,
and it is easily the bluest feather that the wind loves most.
January 6, 2022
One of my most anticipated releases this year is the new compilation from Carl Phillips called *Then the War: Selected Poems 2007-2020*, but I'm still making my way through his abundant catalogue.
And *Double Shadow*, from 2011, is very good indeed! In my Instagram stories last weekend, I said that if you bring an intimate personal question or a private longing to a book by Phillips, you are bound to find answers, to find succor. And I think that is the most accurate way of describing why I keep coming back to his work.
Poems like "Cathedral" and "Continuous Until We Stop" especially dare me to live a free and authentic life, to let "the body surrender to risk" while "tamer animals / soon lie down again." Optimistic and untethered, reading *Double Shadow* is like stepping alone into an open field as the sun sets, and laying down. And maybe that's the shadows mentioned in the title: my own.
And *Double Shadow*, from 2011, is very good indeed! In my Instagram stories last weekend, I said that if you bring an intimate personal question or a private longing to a book by Phillips, you are bound to find answers, to find succor. And I think that is the most accurate way of describing why I keep coming back to his work.
Poems like "Cathedral" and "Continuous Until We Stop" especially dare me to live a free and authentic life, to let "the body surrender to risk" while "tamer animals / soon lie down again." Optimistic and untethered, reading *Double Shadow* is like stepping alone into an open field as the sun sets, and laying down. And maybe that's the shadows mentioned in the title: my own.
August 25, 2013
Read as 3.5 stars. Torn between 3 and 4 stars on this collection.
Some poems (The Heat of the Sun and Immaculate Each Leaf... in particular) really hit me while many of the others just didn't.
I guess I'm saying simply that it felt a bit uneven to me. Some poems felt layered in meaning while others didn't seem to be interested in plumbing those depths.
As my first introduction to the poet, I think I owe it more time in the future.
Some poems (The Heat of the Sun and Immaculate Each Leaf... in particular) really hit me while many of the others just didn't.
I guess I'm saying simply that it felt a bit uneven to me. Some poems felt layered in meaning while others didn't seem to be interested in plumbing those depths.
As my first introduction to the poet, I think I owe it more time in the future.
September 23, 2016
Why has no one told me to read this man before? Wow. This book is like a double handful of perfectly cut gems. Normally, I dog-ear poems I like, for repeated reading and study, but for this book, I'd have had to mark every page. Stunningly good.
May 27, 2017
Very abstract and dense. Not a lot for the reader to connect with, imagery-wise.
April 8, 2022
I picked up this collection because I really enjoyed Phillips' poem "Almost Tenderly," which appears in this book. At first, I found nearly all of these poems to be beyond my level of interpretation, even doing what I usually do with short poems, which is reading them at least twice to ensure that I've allowed the words enough time to simmer. I eventually got into the swing of it, though, maybe about a third of the way in, and started enjoying my reading experience quite a bit more. Phillips has some really lovely turns of phrase and unique images, some unsettling, some hopeful. As I've said before, I love poetry that's on the mournful side, and there was quite the pessimistic streak running through many of these that fit well with how down I'm feeling about the current state of, well, everything. I did also understand there to be a bit of a resistance to this pessimism, however, like the narrators of several of these poems understand that this outlook isn't sustainable and they want to hope for more. But again, this could just be me projecting! I liked many poems from this collection, some I feel I understood and some I feel that I did not, but either way it was a nice read.
February 22, 2023
It's my first time to read Carl Phillips' work and it saddens me to admit that I didn’t like this collection. I even read it twice to make sure about my overall impression. The premise sounded great – delving into the contrasts of humanity – but the execution didn’t land, well at least for me.
While I found several lines here beautifully profound, most of the poems just didn’t move me. Some were forgettable. I’m still open to reading his other works, though. Sadly, this one was a miss.
While I found several lines here beautifully profound, most of the poems just didn’t move me. Some were forgettable. I’m still open to reading his other works, though. Sadly, this one was a miss.
November 27, 2019
There were some gems that really spoke to me in this collection, but it wasn't quite my favorite. Still, Carl Phillips is a great poet!
August 12, 2023
their bodies
meanwhile lifting, falling, sexual, like hammers, like
a hammer thrown up into and across where the sky
had begun...
April 21, 2024
mmm good soup
October 22, 2025
A few real zingers — gorgeous, delicate language. But inaccessible enough that it was sometimes frustrating. I’d give it a 3.5 if I could.
Read
April 24, 2011Double Shadow is the eleventh collection of poetry by Carl Phillips, although the first that I have read. The title refers to the duality of life, the double shadow it casts, the contrasting worlds a single moment can create. The collection also deals strongly with the theme of loss and grief. In "Next Stop, Arcadia", Phillips ends with the question, "which is better? It's hard to decide: / the ugliness of weeping, or the tears themselves?", an example of the conflict, both external and internal, present through Double Shadow.
"The Need for Dreaming" begins with the lines:
"As a scar commemorates what happened,
so is memory itself but a scar."
These are the subjects present in Phillips' writing, nothing is quite as it seems, a scar that is not just a scar. Rather, it is an emptiness he "can't stop collecting", "the strewn shells/of spent ammunition where I come across them;/ carefully, I hold each up toward what's left of the light." The brokenness of humanity comes across again in the poem "Night" where Phillips writes:
"But by then, it was morning again.
We could see what it was to be at last forsaken-
not so much by others, as by what we'd come to
think of as our better selves,"
and later, in the same poem:
"The restless choir
that any human life can be, sometimes, casts forth
all over again its double shadow: now risk, and now
faintheartedness- we're not what
either of us expected,
are we?- each one a form of disembodiment,
without the other."
The line "we're not what/ either of us expected/are we?" reminds the reader how easy it is to become something else. The main theme at the centre of Double Shadow is epitomized in the poem "On Horseback", in which Phillips writes, "At/ once both a thing that blinds and a form of blindness." In "Of The Rippling Surface", Phillips begins:
"The dragonsflies are only the first thing. How they're
not what you think, or thought you would."
reminding the reader of yet another thing which we think is something other than what it is. This related to both our emotions and physical objects which we imbue with our own feelings. Our perception of what something is and what it actually may stand in stark contrast to each other, but neither one is false. In "My Bluest Shirt", Phillips ends with the line "Now I touch at once both everything and nothing." which seems to be what he has attempted with this collection. The poems in Double Shadow are fragile pieces, verging on fragments at times. The writing is sparse but haunting, and when it succeeds it leaves the reader in precarious position, doubting if what we thought was one thing was in fact something else.
"The Need for Dreaming" begins with the lines:
"As a scar commemorates what happened,
so is memory itself but a scar."
These are the subjects present in Phillips' writing, nothing is quite as it seems, a scar that is not just a scar. Rather, it is an emptiness he "can't stop collecting", "the strewn shells/of spent ammunition where I come across them;/ carefully, I hold each up toward what's left of the light." The brokenness of humanity comes across again in the poem "Night" where Phillips writes:
"But by then, it was morning again.
We could see what it was to be at last forsaken-
not so much by others, as by what we'd come to
think of as our better selves,"
and later, in the same poem:
"The restless choir
that any human life can be, sometimes, casts forth
all over again its double shadow: now risk, and now
faintheartedness- we're not what
either of us expected,
are we?- each one a form of disembodiment,
without the other."
The line "we're not what/ either of us expected/are we?" reminds the reader how easy it is to become something else. The main theme at the centre of Double Shadow is epitomized in the poem "On Horseback", in which Phillips writes, "At/ once both a thing that blinds and a form of blindness." In "Of The Rippling Surface", Phillips begins:
"The dragonsflies are only the first thing. How they're
not what you think, or thought you would."
reminding the reader of yet another thing which we think is something other than what it is. This related to both our emotions and physical objects which we imbue with our own feelings. Our perception of what something is and what it actually may stand in stark contrast to each other, but neither one is false. In "My Bluest Shirt", Phillips ends with the line "Now I touch at once both everything and nothing." which seems to be what he has attempted with this collection. The poems in Double Shadow are fragile pieces, verging on fragments at times. The writing is sparse but haunting, and when it succeeds it leaves the reader in precarious position, doubting if what we thought was one thing was in fact something else.
February 18, 2017
"You're the same/ wilderness you've always// been, slashing through briars,/ the bracken/of your invasive/ self." As other work by Carl Phillips, this book explores intimate territories of loss and the role of time's orchestration in the way we hear the melodies of our lives. Deeply affecting.
November 9, 2015
A return to form. I can't say when form ever fell off but sometime before Phillips' selected poems, Quiver of Arrows, it was possible to read him in expectations the poem's cascading syntax established and then left quiet. Take this bit of epideictic rhetoric from Double Shadow and the analogy it implicitly establishes, from the poem, "On Horseback:" "To fuck; to forgive. As if | the two were the same -- no, as when they | are the same. The hawk is neither more nor | less worth praising for the fact that it kills than | for the elegance with which it does so." This use of praise to re-inscribe temporality (interval) as the logic whereby "Distortion works the only way it can," is an extemporizing indeed. The poet leaves that one on the page. The only place it might be left. Nonetheless, the metonymy suggested by the title shivers through the inscription and is -- I think -- memorable.
February 26, 2011
The primary themes in this volume are the duality in the nature of things: "at/once both a thing that blinds and a form of blindness" from On Horseback, and the duality of opposing forces that allows opposites to exist: "the light without which/there would/be no shadow" from Roses. Also, the existence of a different or "third life....even now--blooming, in spite of us" from Sky Coming Forward. This duality (read complexity) sometimes makes the speaker uncomfortable with the two-sided coin of himself, but the closing poem ends on a changed voice, which may be conflicted, unhappy and restless, but is also unafraid, resigned yet bared, open.
Some recurring words in the volume: mistake, desire, risk, hunger, restlessness, forgiveness, horse, blue, sea.
Some recurring words in the volume: mistake, desire, risk, hunger, restlessness, forgiveness, horse, blue, sea.
March 18, 2012
It breaks my heart a little to give this book three stars because two of my favorite Phillips poems are in this collection ("Cathedral" and "Civilization," both of which I heard him read a few years before this book was published). Those two poems mean so much to me, and yet I can't ignore the fact that a lot of the other poems in this book mean so little. Much of the book felt overwrought and repetitive, and while I know Phillips tends towards certain types of abstractions, images, and syntax, the poems in this collection blurred together in my mind. If Phillips published half as often I would love him twice as much. Which is saying a lot, because I already am so fond of his work.
March 31, 2011
This is essential reading for anyone over the age of 35 — and/or for anyone who has grappled with true loss, had his/her face rubbed in mortality, or lost sleep/weight/friends over the question of cap-W why. These poems are urgent; they are precise and beautiful in their wrestling with the multilayered mess of existing.
"...I think
to be useless doesn't have to mean
not somehow mattering..."
Chances are, I'm going to carry this book in my bag for the next few months.
"...I think
to be useless doesn't have to mean
not somehow mattering..."
Chances are, I'm going to carry this book in my bag for the next few months.
October 5, 2011
PIECE. OF. CRAP. I hated this book. It was a waste of my time, but I refused to rate it without reading all of it. The poems are nonsense and gibberish. Practically just random words thrown together...devoid of meaning (at least, to me). Retails for $23.00. That is a big fat JOKE! UGH. This book sucks. =( It is going in the trash!
Woot!!!!!!! I just won this book on Goodreads Giveaways! I can't wait to read it! Thank you for the opportunity to win great books!! <3
Woot!!!!!!! I just won this book on Goodreads Giveaways! I can't wait to read it! Thank you for the opportunity to win great books!! <3
December 4, 2011
Decided to read some of this year's nominees for the National Book Award in the poetry category.
Some of the poems in this collection hit me, some didn't as much, but I enjoyed it overall.
My favorite line was from Sky Coming Forward and said this: "What if, between this one and the one / we hoped for, there's a third life, taking its own / slow, dreamlike hold, even now--blooming in spite of us?"
Some of the poems in this collection hit me, some didn't as much, but I enjoyed it overall.
My favorite line was from Sky Coming Forward and said this: "What if, between this one and the one / we hoped for, there's a third life, taking its own / slow, dreamlike hold, even now--blooming in spite of us?"
January 2, 2012
Decided to read some of this year's nominees for the National Book Award in the poetry category.
Some of the poems in this collection hit me, some didn't as much, but I enjoyed it overall.
My favorite line was from Sky Coming Forward and said this: "What if, between this one and the one / we hoped for, there's a third life, taking its own / slow, dreamlike hold, even now--blooming in spite of us?"
Some of the poems in this collection hit me, some didn't as much, but I enjoyed it overall.
My favorite line was from Sky Coming Forward and said this: "What if, between this one and the one / we hoped for, there's a third life, taking its own / slow, dreamlike hold, even now--blooming in spite of us?"
February 22, 2012
Won as a First Reads
A beautiful book of poems. They all seem to be connected in some form or another and reading them in this book seemed like the best way to read them. They made sense and drew connections from previous one. Mr. Phillips is an amazing poet and I haven't enjoyed reading poetry for a long time and this time I truly did. :) 5/5 stars.
A beautiful book of poems. They all seem to be connected in some form or another and reading them in this book seemed like the best way to read them. They made sense and drew connections from previous one. Mr. Phillips is an amazing poet and I haven't enjoyed reading poetry for a long time and this time I truly did. :) 5/5 stars.
May 4, 2011
Its probably been years since I sat down with a book of poetry. If I hadn't won this book on goodreads, I probably wouldn't have read it - and would've missed out on beautifully written poetry. I'm so glad I took the time to read it.
March 6, 2012
Not my favorite book of Carl Phillips' (I've got 5 or 6) but even so, its still a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick to the gut.
"Look at me. Little ocean, getting farther away.
Now I touch at once both everything and nothing. "
"Look at me. Little ocean, getting farther away.
Now I touch at once both everything and nothing. "
October 25, 2011
A National Book Award finalist, this is my first experience with Carl Phillips.
The poems vary in style and focus, and throughout there are italicized words that seem to be someone else's voice. Another male. A lover? Friend? His double shadow?
The poems vary in style and focus, and throughout there are italicized words that seem to be someone else's voice. Another male. A lover? Friend? His double shadow?
June 28, 2012
A few good lines. I'd have to say, mostly, I didn't get it.
October 16, 2012
I recommend his poems if you're contemplating the meaning of life.
June 28, 2013
Magical.
Read
March 14, 2015A good collection about the dual nature of things, shadows, Phillip's views on inevitability (which I disagree with), and nature (the sea).
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews