The Eye Like a Strange Balloon: Poems (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780802141576)

The ever-adventurous author of Louise in Love looks to the visual arts for inspiration with this astonishing fourth collection. The poems in The Eye Like a Strange Balloon find their seed in paintings, film, video, photographs, and collage, and the end results are something more than a sum of their parts. Beginning with a painting done in 2003, the poems move backward in time to 1 B.C., where an architectural fragment is painted on an architectural fragment, highlighting visual art's strange relationship between the image and the thing itself. The total effect is exhilarating-a wholly original, personal take on art history coupled with Bang's sly and elegant commentary on poetry's enduring subjects: Love, Death, Time, and Desire. The recipient of numerous prizes and awards, Bang stands at the front of American poetry with this new work, asking more of the English language, and enticing and challenging the reader.

Author: Mary Jo Bang
ISBN-10: 0802141579
ISBN-13: 9780802141576
Publisher: Grove Press
Language: English
Published: 09/29/2004
Pages: 112
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.32lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.58w x 0.32d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 10/18/2004 pg. 61
New York Times 11/21/2004 pg. 26
Booklist 11/15/2004 pg. 547
Library Journal 01/15/2005 pg. 116
Library Journal 01/01/2005