The night Abraham called to the stars Poems

When Iron John: A Book About Men took off in the early '90s, Bly's poetic reputation was instantly eclipsed, though he had long embraced mythic precedents and close examination of masculine feelings in his work. Bly has also worked in collaboration with linguists to translate Islamic religious poetry, and this eighth collection reflects these and other varied and sustained interests. The book's 48 lyrics are written in a single (here terceted) form, the ghazal, used by such great Islamic poets as Ghalib, and harness high points of Western art and literature to draw general, biblically backed conclusions about the human condition out of the mire. The three poems inspired by Rembrandt are probably the best here, simple in diction and understated in effect: "Titus receives a scattering of darkness./ He's baptized by water soaking in onions;/ The father protects his son by washing him in the night." But too many lines veer from the prosaic into the clunky in their quest for universal imagery: "My heart is a calm potato by day, and a weeping,/ Abandoned woman by night," notes the speaker of the title poem. After a series of mentions of animals in "The Wildebeest," a reference to "The Moses of the beaver" is unconsciously comic at best. The cultural references follow one another at a fast and furious pace, and while the initial surprise of finding Chekhov and Blake or Kierkegaard and Cezanne in the same poem can be pleasant, there is little holding them there beyond Bly's will-to-form. No one will doubt Bly's sincerity, but the poems fall short of the heady figures they invoke. (May) Forecast: Despite their flaws, these poems surpass the new work of last year's Eating the Honey of Words: New & Selected Poems. Bly's multitude of fans will recognize their hero's concerns and preoccupations, here more elegiacally than ever, and relish some of the real achievements. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

The Night Abraham Called to the Stars Poems The Night Abraham Called to the Stars Do you remember the night Abraham first called To the stars? He cried to Saturn: "You are my Lord!" How happy he was! When he saw the Dawn Star, He cried, "You are my Lord!" How destroyed he was When he watched them set. Friends, he is like us: We take as our Lord the stars that go down. We are faithful companions to the unfaithful stars. We are diggers, like badgers; we love to feel The dirt flying out from behind our hind claws. And no one can convince us that mud is not Beautiful. It is our badger soul that thinks so. We are ready to spend the rest of our life Walking with muddy shoes in the wet fields. We resemble exiles in the kingdom of the serpent. We stand in the onion fields looking up at the night. My heart is a calm potato by day, and a weeping, Abandoned woman by night. Friend, tell me what to do, Since I am a man in love with the setting stars. The Night Abraham Called to the Stars Poems . Copyright © by Robert Bly. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The Night Abraham Called to the Stars: Poems by Robert Bly All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.