An Explanation of America

Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets

by Robert Pinsky

From An Explanation of America
LAIR

Inexhaustible, delicate, as if
Without source or medium, daylight
Undoes the mind; the infinite,

Empty actual is too bright,
Scattering to where the road
Whispers, through a mile of woods ...

Later, how quiet the house is:
Dusk-like and refined,
The sweet Phoebe-note

Piercing from the trees;
The calm globe of the morning,
Things to read or to write

Ranged on a table; the brain
A dark, stubborn current that breathes
Blood, a deaf wadding,

The hands feeding it paper
And sensations of wood or metal
On its own terms. Trying to read

I persist a while, finish the recognition
By my breath of a dead giant's breath--
Stayed by the space of a rhythm,

Witnessing the blue gulf of the air.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1979

About the author

Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry. His published work also includes critically acclaimed translations, including The Inferno of Dante Alighieri and The Separate Notebooks by Czesław Miłosz. He teaches at Boston University and is the poetry editor at Slate.
wikipedia

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I remember hearing it said that it was a rule that poetry should try not to be too timely, and aim for timelessness. I think Pinsky aimed for timelessness here. There are not a lot of contemporary references, Vietnam, a couple of news stories that could have happened at any time, and some references to events in his daughter's life that could have happened in anyone's life. It's technically very good, Pinsky has a gift for turning a phrase, and for structuring the flow of his words. But I think the timelessness hurts the poem now.

I picked this up because the idea of a poem that is also a sort of letter to your child, attempting to explain the world you live in to her, is very appealing to me. But I think for that same reason, the timelessness of the tone, the aim for a kind of reproducibility or universality of American experience falls flat right now. This poem feels more distant from the America of today than it's actual 41 years. It feels like an artifact whose most relevant passage is the quotation and analysis of Horace's Epistulae I, which is older still by orders of magnitude.

[Margalit · Rating 3 out of 5]

buy one explanation of america get one half baked explanation of ancient rome free

[Ingrid · Rating 2 out of 5]

The kind of poem that doesn't know when to end.

[Ronald Wise · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the first to the last line of this poem, it was a stimulating experience. From the title I assumed Pinsky had attempted to define America and started to read it with some skepticism. I soon realized that definition was not his goal, but that his title intended a more transcendental sense of the word explanation.

I finished reading this poem ten days ago and I still find myself thinking frequently about some of its content - in particular one still image and a couple of brief visual clips. In these three instances Pinsky potently, but economically, provided perfect examples of what I felt to be his overall message - America may be unique in terms of the geographic locations and visual scenery it offers, but the individuals' experiences of this landscape are determined by a complex, interactive, set of perceptions - some repeated throughout human existence, some shaped by recent history, and some attributable to one's personal past, current situation, and anticipation of the future.

The still image that haunts me involved, as I recall it now, an abandoned farm house along a country highway - about to collapse - with the headstones showing above the tall grass in a nearby family cemetery. A brief glimpse from a speeding car which tells a very complicated story, much of which may suggest characteristics of "America". Perhaps the hopes and dreams of a past generation in a new land, and the changed priorities of subsequent generations. Perhaps the short time that the culture of a remote agricultural life had to develop before the world was shrunk by modern transportation, communication, and agribusiness. These are the types of thoughts this poem sparked in me, and I appreciate the increased complexity this book has brought to my understanding of America.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently even Pinsky's early work is hit-and-miss. What I think he's trying to do, in addition to write a sort of poetic letter to his daughter, is mimic what Wordsworth does in "The Prelude." Except Pinsky's supposed to be talking about America instead of the imagination and its relationship to poetry.

I said "supposed to be" because much of what Pinsky does is quote other poems and writers--and I mean large, long spaces of quotations (which is something I even tell my students to avoid in their papers). And sometimes he talks about America or, rather, specific places in it, but by leaving out large portions of the country (including the mid-west, south, and west coast) he's not actually writing about "America" very well.

Frankly, I wanted the poem after which the book is named (there is a short one at the beginning and another at the end) to end; it's about fifty pages long, which is maybe four times as long as it should be. Pinsky simply isn't as even and imaginative in this book as he can be. Avoid it and read some of his other books instead.

[Abraham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes on the challenge, so germane to Pinsky as poet and public figure, of proving that poetry is a superior forum for the discussion and examination of ideas. The book-length poem does exactly what it suggests, attempts to explain america in a fashion that is both politically opinionated and non-reductive, and at the same time, poetic. It is also an exercise in an update of the long form, so neglected by the lit mag culture of today.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay it took me forever to read this just cos I'm just not much a reader of poetry - it challenges my literal-thinking brain, and that's a good thing. I don't know that I understood all of this but I found it interesting and really liked some of it.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pinsky is one of only a handful of modern poets whose style I like. This is probably his best book of poetry.

[Mikael · Rating 1 out of 5]

i mean ure just begging EVERYone to say yer book doesnt explain anything let alone america pinskyboy

[H]

an incredible modern lyric poem. proof that poetry can still be sacred invocation, not merely politic nor solipsism nor bumpkin decoration.