The World at Large: New and Selected Poems, 1971-1996

by James McMichael, Alan Shaprio (Translator)

The World at Large brings together the best of James McMichael's poetry and includes works that appear for the first time in this volume. With the publication of the new poems, McMichael surpasses even the formally daring and psychologically penetrating poetry that has characterized his work thus far.

Genres: Poetry

218 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 1996

Reviews

[Lorene · Rating 5 out of 5]

McMichael’s poems are often lyrical moments embedded with stories shaped by the poet’s intense rumination and meditation. He gives personal experience a significance that seems to justify the array of complex emotions we all feel in our relationships with and to “the other.” And in this array of complexity, he speaks both plainly and with painful honesty. According to Mark Dow, “McMichael writes in a language whose plain-spokenness disguises its own inventiveness.” Of course, it is the work of the poet to invent, to create, to make. Yet, McMichael’s work demonstrates not only inventiveness, but also demonstrates a superlative beauty in its attention to craft. The question McMichael often poses to his students, what persuades a poet to break the line, is a question answered exquisitely in his own work.

[Liam Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not as in love with the long sequence of poems that constitute Each in a Place Apart. I've read it twice now and it still reads to me somewhat self-serving on McMichael's part.

The title poem, however, impressed me considerably more on this go around than when I first read it, and the other book-length poem in this retrospective collection, Four Good Things, is truly awesome.

[Gerbik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm returning to FOUR GOOD THINGS and "Itinerary."

[W. Benson Cartwright · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each In A Place Apart is alone worth the price of this book.

[Tara Flint Taylor]

zero stars