Field, Edward

After the Fall: Poems Old and New

ISBN: 9780822959809
Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007. Softcover. "Look, friend, at this universe/ With its spiral clusters of stars/ Flying out all over space/ Like bedsprings suddenly busting free;/ And in this galaxy, the sun/ Fissioning itself away,/ Surrounded by planets, prominent in their dignity,/ And bits and pieces running wild;/ And this middling planet/ With a lone moon circling round it.// Look, friend, through the fog of gases at this world/ With its skin of earth and rock, water and ice,/ With various creatures and rooted things;/ And up from the bulging waistline/ To this land of concrete towers,/ Its roads swarming like a hive cut open,/ Offshore to this island, long and fish-shaped,/ Its mouth to a metropolis,/ And in its belly, this village,/ A gathering of families at a crossways,/ And in this house, upstairs and through the wide open door/ Of the front bedroom with a window on the world,/ Look, friend, at me." ("Prologue," pg. 60) A later collection of new & selected poems by Edward Field (1924-2026), the venerable, award-winning American poet, author & editor who very recently as of this writing passed away at the very ripe age of 102 (beating Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021) in the Great American Poets' Longevity Record). With then-new, theretofore unpublished poems & selections from his key collections over many decades including the acclaimed Stand Up, Friend, With Me (1963, quoted above). A bomber veteran of World War II, Field went on to become a pioneeringly open LGBT poet who also explored his Jewish heritage, contemporary political topics & universal themes (as above) in his riveting, accessible works. Among his many accomplishments was to anthologize & keep alive the essays & stories of the brilliant-but-bedeviled Alfred Chester (1928-1971, see our item No.s 7787, 9123). Trade-format softcover original, first edition, first printing as indicated by number sequence at copyright page. From the collection of Laurence Goldstein (1943-2023), a renowned American poet, author, critic, editor & academician here at the University of Michigan. An excellent one-volume introduction to Field's vast poetic oeuvre; in its rarest contemporary form & with distinguished, relevant provenance. In quite very fine condition with only a touch of rubbing, faint scratching to front, back covers & spine; a few miniscule bumps, creases at edges & corners of same; small area of slightest rubbing at lower edge of text block near side-edge of same. Interior very fine with only tiny bumps at lower corners of last few page leaves; otherwise appearing substantially mint. Very Fine. [Item #9532]

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