The cloud corporation

Summary: "Donnelly's formally rigorous and ambitious, not to mention highly anticipated, second book follows up on the many projects of his debut, Twenty-Seven Props for a Production of Ein Liebenzeit, and extends his powers in poems that encompass a wider emotional range. Still here are the gorgeous linguistic surfaces, but also glimpses of a new intimacy: "when I fell you fell beside me and the concrete refused to apologize." Throughout is a kind of dark wordplay--"Demonstrate to yourself a resistance to feeling/ unqualified despair by attempting something like/ perfect despair embellished with hand gestures"--That pokes fun at language while remembering how dangerous words truly are. Procedural poems, such as one that repurposes language from the Patriot Act ("New obstacles shall be established by the Chairman of Failure./ Authorized language drones shall implement and expand/ written combat") portray the dark underbelly of official rhetoric. A pair of beautiful and frustrated long poems introduce a mind agoraphobicly trapped in its vast vocabulary: "the adverb here refers to my person/ and all its outskirts." These poems are a strange and powerful force to be reckoned with."--Publisher's description.

Record details

ISBN: 1933517476
ISBN: 9781933517476
Physical Description: 153 pages ; 23 cm
print
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Seattle : Wave Books ; [2010]
Copyright: ©2010

Content descriptions

General Note:	Poems.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 149-150).
Formatted Contents Note:	The new intelligence -- The malady that took the place of thinking -- To his debt -- The new hymns -- Between the rivers -- Clair de Lune -- Partial inventory of airborne debris -- Fun for the shut-in -- Chivas regal -- His excuse -- Fantasies of management -- The cloud corporation -- The night ship -- Chapter for being transformed into a sparrow -- To his own device -- Chapter for breathing air among the waters -- The last dream of light released from seaports -- Bled -- Dispatch from behind the mountain -- No diary -- Epitaph by his own hand -- Poem beginning with a sentence from The monk -- His agenda -- The rumored existence of other people -- No mission statement, no strategic plan -- The new histrionicism -- Montezuma to his magicians -- Dream of Arabian hillbillies -- Chapter for being transformed into a lotus -- Antepenultimate conflict with self -- His apologia -- To his detriment -- Chapter for kindling a torch -- Explanation of an oriole -- Bulletin from under the bed -- Dream of a poetry of defense -- Through the wilderness of his forehead -- Globus hystericus -- The last vibrations -- Chapter for removing foolish speech from the mouth -- His theogony -- Tiberius at the Villa Jovis -- Advice to baboons of the New Kingdom -- Dream of the overlook -- Team of fake deities arranged on an orange plate -- Chapter for a headrest -- In his tree -- Chapter for not dying again -- His future as Atilla the Hun.
Awards Note:	Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, 2012.