In Praise of Manhattan

by David M Katz

Poetry. "From the island of Manhattan, David M. Katz brings poems of elegy and praise, the gifts of a lifetime that embraces a city in constant flux. A formal master whose blank verse glides effortlessly between the eloquent and the colloquial, Katz invokes the greats--Frost, Stevens, Yeats, and more--but, in poem after poem, it is Katz's own voice that shines most unforgettably. Poems of mid-twentieth-century childhood give way to the struggles of a young journalist and young father, arch commentaries on contemporary culture, and moving meditations on identity and family. His two elegies for the poetic Zen masters Dick Allen and Allen Ginsberg are essential reading. His crown of sonnets, 'On Retirement,' is both a flawless tour-de-force and a tender look at the complicated interactions of memory and loss between father and son, the past and the present. Whether listening to "Rubber Soul" on some long-ago afternoon, hearing the 'three beats of the whippoorwill' in his son's nighttime crying, or walking 34th Street while decades of its history converge with the present moment, David M. Katz remains a poet of rare gifts, a generous spirit whose poems--'those lines in which the living hear the dead'--wrestle with darkness while engaging with life."--NED BALBO

72 pages, Paperback

Published January 13, 2020