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Poetry. The poem "Realization" reads: "Our lives in their daily reference to the actual world/seem to happen there. In retrospect,/their shape is otherwise: actual terms/have little to do with them, cannot describe/what they are. But those are the terms we need to use." The prolific and widely respected poet William Bronk, author of nearly two dozen celebrated books of poetry and prose, succeeds in making "actual terms," terms that actually fit neither objectsnor experiences, completely relevant to "our lives in their daily reference," without losing sight of a certain gorgeous and concrete specificity: "mornings are beautiful." (from "Epiphany") "The brilliant fire of his poems, their blaze of ruthless thought and flawless music achieves the impossible: it forges a world out of the 'worldless.'"-Rosmarie Waldrop. Deceptively simple on their surface, these poems ask to be read repeatedly: their quiet voices resonate with a kind of truth that some might argue has gone out of fashion, but which remains, almost inevitably, true. ... Read more

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Poetry. Reality isn't real. Why do we look?/ We look because the real is the shape of desire:/ that the world be real and we a person in it./ We believe our beliefs to pretend that that should be/ or abide a world whose reality isn't real. One of our most intimate, haunting, and important poets -- Dictionary of Literary Biography. One of the most solid and unfrivolous contemporary poets -- Kirkus Reviews. Arguably the most metaphysical poet of his generation -- Hungry Mind Review. ... Read more

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William Bronk was born in 1918 and lives now in Hudson Falls, New York. Acclaimed by The Nation as "our most significant poet," he is the author of nearly two dozen celebrated books of poetry. Winner of the American Book Award for his collected poems, LIFE SUPPORTS, he is also the author of a collection of prose works, VECTORS AND SMOOTHABLE CURVES, which is widely considered a landmark in contemporary literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Amazingly powerful poems.
Bronk's poems are consistently thought-provoking and true.Although the poems are easy to understand, I find myself stopping after almost every poem to process and reread.

I don't know why he isn't read more and better known. He shows the influence of Frost more than any other major poet. He should be taught to high school kids.

This collection is very generous one and a good starting point for someone new to Bronk's poems.

The most intelligent American poetry of the century...
The metaphysical composure, the simplicity of expression, and the rich austerity of William Bronk's poetry has a power reminiscent of T.S. Eliot, whose ability to reflect on the root questions of our life and civilizationhe shared. This is poetry that will speak to the prosaic moments of yourdaily thought, and your sense of reality itself, at the same time. It ispoetry that will be read a century from now, and so you should read itnow... ... Read more

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A quiet collection
In this collection, American Book Award winner William Bronk write aseries of very, very short sharp poems on a variety of subjects.Most ofthe poems are just two or three lines; a few of them are mildly humorous("Reality is willing we should think / about it: no harm."). There are moments of striking beauty: "Summer is the deepness oftrees." Many of the poems contemplate the meaning of death, and therelationship between man and the deity.These are serious poems, by a poethighly respected if somewhat unknown.While I would not recommend Bronk toanybody just falling in love with poetry, he is a wonderful acquaintancefor those who have met the major poets and want a quiet corner to sit inand reflect.Nothing major here, but a nice place to visit. ... Read more

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Poetry. From 1956 till his death in 1999, William Bronk published thirty books of poetry and essays. Bronk returned again and again to a fundamental assertion that what is real--the world, truth, and ourselves--remains beyond the grasp of language and knowledge. Consequently, the world that we inhabit is a fiction of our own construction. Winner of the American Book Award for his collected poems, he is considered one of the foremost poets of his time. THE BODY OF THIS LIFE is an outstanding collection of essays and memoirs about his work by poets and scholars including Edward Foster, Burt Kimmelman, Robert Bertholf, and David Clippenger. ... Read more

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Nonfiction. VECTORS AND SMOOTHABLE CURVES, the collected essays of one of our foremost writers, brings together "The New World," "A Partial Glossary," "The Brother in Elysium," and shorter works on Thoreau and Oppen. Included are meditations on time, desire, and the roots of American literary thought. Few books in our time are as provocative and rewarding ... Read more

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Topos of contemporary american poetry revealed...
Kimmelman's use of an overall presentation of Bronk's "World" in peregrinations both biographical and literary, serves both contemporary theory and literary history in this very readable survey of one of thiscentury's most influential poets and thinkers. I found myself finallyliberated, along with Bronk, from the yoke of Stevens' mind-bendingalteration of the american poetic topos, free to investigate the strandsand filaments of this poet's lexical world with new license. A rewardingjourney, despite the fact that the poet's own work might sometimes make usreact quite the contrary. ... Read more

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Poetry. "Bronk's surgical turn of mind and resultant brevity imbue his poems with a speed and agility that cut to the core of knotty matters.. His rare gift is the ability to float difficult truths on fleeting snatches of spoken breath"--the Village Voice Literary Supplement. ... Read more

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Poetry. "With his third collection in three years, Bronk is at his philosophical best. Like his previous work, these brief, highly spiritual poems probe the nature (or inanity) of life, and how speech plays a role in shaping what man thinks he is. But, whereas most poets are obsessed with finding the proper names for objects within their range of vision, these poems imply that, since the meanings of words are subject to change over time, any name will do. What matters is action; man alone has the ability not only to move, but to choose his movements, to create. 'To be is the verb to be. The noun pretends.' An English teacher's nightmare, these minimalist poems string together verbs and adverbs, seldom in anything approximating what we usually think of as a sentence. Nouns are often abstract and always general--'truth,' 'sadnesses,' 'poverty,' 'devotion'--yet in the hands of this literary descendant of Louis Zukofsky and the other Objectivist poets, no poem lacks specificity. For the first time in Bronk's work, pronouns include more than the speaker; 'we,' 'us' and 'you' predominate, while the 'I' is 'inanimate, marked for discard.' The fact that Bronk is now 75 years old gives words such as these additional credence"--Publishers Weekly. ... Read more

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Poetry. LIVING INSTEAD was published by North Point Press in 1991 and is now available from Talisman House and from SPD. William Bronk has been called one of America's greatest living poets (Compound Eye). The way Columbus or someone earlier/ came to a place to be called a New World/ though not more new than the old world was/ --there all along and people living there--/ is like the way a poem is come upon:/ you think there's something there, go see what. (from Exploration). ... Read more