Nothing by Design

ISBN: 0385349793

Author: Salter, Mary Jo

Condition: New

A beautiful collection of verse--both light and dark, elegiac and affirmative--from one of our most admired poets.The title Nothing by Design is taken from Salters villanelle Complaint for Absolute Divorce, in which were asked to entertain the thought of a no-fault universe. The wary search for peace, personal and public, is a constant theme in poems as varied as Our Friends the Enemy, about the Christmas football match between German and British soldiers in 1914; The Afterlife, in which Egyptian tomb figurines labor to serve the dead; and Voice of America, where Salter returns to the Saint Petersburg of her exiled friend, the late Joseph Brodsky. A section of charming light verse serves as counterpoint to another series entitled Bed of Letters, in which Salter addresses the end of a long marriage. Artfully designed, with a highly intentional music, these poems movingly give form to the often unfathomable, yet very real, presence of nothingness and loss in our lives.