Change Of Address: Poems, New And Selected

by David R. Slavitt

A selection of recent work as well as the best from thirteen volumes of poetry published across four decades, Change of Address highlights the magnitude and scope of David Slavitt’s poetic achievement. Meditating on both the quotidian and the sublime and ranging from brilliant satire to tender elegy, this retrospective collection brings into sharp relief Slavitt’s intelligence, strength of voice, and ease in varied poetic forms. From the beginning of his career, Slavitt has displayed a rare technical virtuosity, and his verse has long confronted—with urbanity and poise—questions of love, grief, loss, and death. Though he is an exuberantly playful poet, his gamesmanship is earnest, toying wisely and bravely with the largest experiences of joy and heartbreak. And his gestures, while seemingly effortless, are carefully considered. The result is a body of poetry that haunts us as only the best literature can. A splendid capstone to Slavitt’s copious output, Change of Address grants readers access to the extraordinary spectrum of his poetry in a single volume. A body betrays, and even a mind can rebel, but against what? What remains? Slowly but surely, we are forced to suppose a soul, which serves us well, while we serve it unfaithfully and impurely. Infinitely regressive? Or merely shy? Call it what watches, suffers, and remains our subject/object, despite whatever pains we may impose upon it, an inner I. Or is it a mere fiction that one may admit as useful or even necessary? Its truth is theoretical, a series, a trend, almost and one conjures it from the motes that fly in the thin air of his youth to create the granite block that marks his end. —"Soul"

Genres: Poetry

260 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2005

About the author

David Rytman Slavitt was an American writer, poet, and translator, the author of more than 100 books.
Slavitt has written a number of novels and numerous translations from Greek, Latin, and other languages. Slavitt wrote a number of popular novels under the pseudonym Henry Sutton, starting in the late 1960s. The Exhibitionist (1967) was a bestseller and sold over four million copies. He has also published popular novels under the names of David Benjamin, Lynn Meyer, and Henry Lazarus. His first work, a book of poems titled Suits for the Dead, was published in 1961. He worked as a writer and film critic for Newsweek from 1958 to 1965.
According to Henry S. Taylor, winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, "David Slavitt is among the most accomplished living practitioners" of writing, "in both prose and verse; his poems give us a pleasurable, beautiful way of meditating on a bad time. We can't ask much more of literature, and usually we get far less." Novelist and poet James Dickey wrote, "Slavitt has such an easy, tolerant, believable relationship with the ancient world and its authors that making the change-over from that world to ours is less a leap than an enjoyable stroll. The reader feels a continual sense of gratitude."