The Gathering of the Elders and Other Poems
By Wesli Court
(“Wesli Court” is the anagram pen-name under which Lewis Turco writes his traditionally formal poems.)
was published on September first, 2010!
from StarCloudPress.com
Product Details:
Soft cover ISBN: 978-1-932842-43-2
Publisher: Star Cloud Press
Date of Publication: September 2010
Page Count: 114
Price: $14.95
COMMENTS BY READERS:
“This major collection by the astonishing Wesli Court is an event calculated to shiver all literary seismographs. Readers addicted to poetry, but weary of ill-made poems, can latch on to it with joy. Aspiring poets can seize it as a handbook of models, learning how to write anything from an ode to a sonnenizio, from an epigram to a blues epilogue. While often striking a wistful, wintry tone of hail-and-farewell, there are notes of infectious cheer and some genuine surprises — even a poem to fulfill an unused title that Wallace Stevens left lying idle. With unique skill, Court shows us what a truly good metrical poem used to be, could be, and (in his able hands) still is.”
— X. J. Kennedy
“It’s an increasingly rare pleasure to read poems about the real world in language as clear as it is lyrical, with deep roots in the past and illuminated by careful rhyme.”
— Miller Williams
“I've had time to read The Gathering of the Elders and admire both its poignancy and its savoir faire — what a pleasure to read poems that sound like poems and feel like poems! Especially after dipping into The New Yorker from time to time and thinking, What hath Ashbery (and Helen Vendler) wrought? After reading the Elders I had to have a second cup of strong coffee. Even the cover is distinguished!”
— Philip Appleman.
There are marvelous things everywhere in The Gathering of the Elders. Since I am at an age when the elegiac tone and note stir me more deeply than ever before, I was quite impressed by the poems in the second section, especially "Letter to a Hall-of-Famer," "Letter to an Editor," and “Letter to Mother," and by "Reflections in an Attic Room," particularly the second half. I think "The Obsession" is a masterpiece — speaking of fathers, the poem of that title and "A Paternal Curse" were also among my favorites, as were, in the last section, the three cautionary poems, "Currency" and "Stile." I was quite struck by the winter poems in the first section and by "After School" and "Columbian Ode" in the third. It's all but impossible to open the book amiss.
—
Michael Palma
A new work by Lewis Turco — or his equally gifted and prolific avatar, “Wesli Court” — is always good news, whatever its form or genre. This one is no exception.
The formal aspect of these poems, as is usual in the work of this poet, is dazzling: there are sonnets and blues, riffs on the villanelle, a profoundly moving “Samsong,” and several sestinas, including “The Obsession,” one of the best examples of that form by anyone. “The Black Death,” a recent tsunami, a Civil War battlefield before the battle, all serve the poet as backgrounds, and his characters include George Gershwin and W. B. Yeats.
Court’s dark meditation on our shared fate ends with a group of poems particularly wrenching for their stoical, steady gaze at the inevitability of loss, coupled with a clear understanding of the value of what must be lost. A birthday poem for the poet’s wife, at once tender, playful and subdued, comes to mind, as well as “Boneyard Blues,” which includes these words, to incorporate the makings of poetry — “tune” and “lyrics” — as stand-ins for aspects of reality:
In the beginning already it was too late —
The gun was loaded and the deck was stacked.
The tune could not provide what the lyrics
lacked.
— Rhina P. Espaillat
Listen to Wesli Court read his terzanelle The Black Death and his
sestina The
Obsession from The Gathering of the Elders and Other Poems.
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