Behemoth

by Bruce Bond

In the poetry collection Behemoth , Bruce Bond explores the metaphysical imagination, both in its secular and sacred forms, as something universal, endemic to consciousness, embedded in our longing to capture a lost past and stave off anxieties about the great forgetting to come. As such the book figures as both a critique and empathetic analysis of idolatry, broadly understood and equally universal, problematic as a failed strategy intent upon possession, at odds with values embedded in its symbols. Figures critical to our identity―including those associated with race, nation, and religion―become most prone to unmindful projection, fears and vulnerabilities and our subsequent potential for cruelty and exclusion. Central to the book’s inquiry is the legacy of the holocaust as something that persists, recognized or not―a critical element of cultural memory that both eludes our language and summons our need to speak.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Hardcover

Published January 5, 2021

About the author

Bruce Bond is the author of eight previous books of poetry including, most recently, Choir of the Wells (Etruscan Press, 2012), The Visible (LSU, 2012), Peal (Etruscan, 2009), and Blind Rain (Finalist, The Poets Prize; LSU, 2008).

After receiving degrees in English from Pomona College and Claremont Graduate School, Bruce Bond earned his MA in Music Performance from Lamont School of Music. For several years then he worked as a classical and jazz musician in Colorado, after which he went on to receive his PhD in English from the University of Denver. His poetry has appeared in Best American Poetry, The Yale Review, The Georgia Review, Raritan, The New Republic, The Virginia Quarterly, Poetry, and many other journals, and he has received numerous honors including fellowships from the NEA, Texas Commission on the Arts, The Institute for the Advancement of the Arts, and other organizations. Presently he is Regents Professor of English at the University of North Texas and Poetry Editor for American Literary Review.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m going to re-read this before I write up my definitive review. I struggled with the collection’s start and the speaker’s voice. But what’s trying for scripture finally finds its footing for me about halfway through.