1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910480952803321

Titolo

Common Wealth : Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania / / edited by Marjorie Maddox and Jerry Wemple

Pubbl/distr/stampa

University Park : , : Pennsylvania State University Press, , 2005

©2005

ISBN

0-271-03191-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xv, 270 p. ) : ill., 1 map ;

Collana

Keystone Books

Altri autori (Persone)

WempleJerry

MaddoxMarjorie <1959->

Disciplina

811.008032748

Soggetti

HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Middle Atlantic (DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA)

American poetry

Poesie americaine - Pennsylvanie

American poetry - Pennsylvania

Poetry

Electronic books.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvanie Poesie

Pennsylvania Poetry

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di contenuto

"Bones & Ashes," Helen Ruggieri -- "Photograph," Anthony Petrosky -- "The Strippings," Linda Tomol Pennisi -- "Cousin, Will You Take My Hand?" Jerry Wemple -- "Susquehanna: The Projects," Ruth Ellen Kocher -- "The Field (an Excerpt)," Linda Tomol Pennisi -- "The Jeweler," Peter Oresick -- "Real Faux Pearls," Betsy Sholl -- "Polka Dancing to Eddie Blazonczyk and His Versatones in Coaldale, Pennsylvania," Leonard Kress -- "A Different House," Paul Martin -- "In Cursive," Len Roberts -- "Spring Peepers, April, Wassergass," Len Roberts -- "Easter Sunday, Seisholtzville," Ann E. Michael

"Ode to Coal," Sherry Fairchok -- "Coalscape," Craig Czury -- "Coal Crackers," James Hoch -- "Burning Mountain," W. S. Merwin -- "Christ Comes to Centralia," Barbara Crooker -- "Centralia (October 31, 1986),"



Karen Blomain -- "This Is Not My Cousin," Valerie Fox -- "What They Wanted Us to Bring Back," Sherry Fairchok -- "Family Portrait, 1933," Peter Oresick -- "Working the Face," Jay Parini -- "Coal Train," Jay Parini -- "The Miner's Wife Leaves Home," Karen Blomain -- "So the Coal Was Gone," Thomas Kielty Blomain -- "Showing a Friend My Town," Harry Humes -- "March 10, 1951," Craig Czury

"Mennonite Farm Wife," Janet Kauffman -- "Female Ancestor," Ann Hostetler -- "Buggy Ride at Sixteen," Marjorie Maddox -- "Papaya: Lancaster County," Juanita Brunk -- "Back with the Quakers," Betsy Sholl -- "Before the Silver Chord Is Loosed," Helen Mallon -- "In Carpenter's Woods," Gerald Stern -- "Halfway," Maxine Kumin -- "Potter's Field, Germantown," Robin Hiteshew -- "Wallace Stevens House Prayer," Heather Thomas -- "Shillington," John Updike -- "Route 222: Reading to Kutztown," Heather Thomas -- "The Idea of the Ordinary," Carmine Sarracino -- 3. Circling East: Mines, Mountains, and Mills

"Crazy Mary Rides the El," Michele A. Belluomini -- "Spiritual Exercise, Kensington, Philadelphia," Leonard Kress -- "If You Are Reading This," Lynn Levin -- "Preliminary Sketches: Philadelphia," Elizabeth Alexander -- "Our Lady of the Cabbages," Deborah Burnham -- "10 pm at a Philadelphia Recreation Center," Peter Krok -- "The Star Show," Robin Becker -- "A Poem for a Black Boy," Sonia Sanchez -- "Chester County Winter Day," George Fleck -- "Spiritual Morning," Robin Becker -- "A Hill in Pennsylvania," Nathaniel Smith -- "In the Small World," Sandra Kohler -- "Mennonites," Julia Kasdorf

Front Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Greetings from the Commonwealth! -- "Pennsylvania," Gabriel Welsch -- "The Map," Kathryn Hellerstein -- "Coming East from Cleveland to Philadelphia at Harvest," Jeanne Murray Walker -- "Route 81," David Chin -- "Me 'n Bruce Springsteen Take My Baby Off to College," Barbara Crooker -- 2. Beginnings: Philadelphia, "Dutch" Country, and Their Environs -- "Philly Things," David Livewell -- "Colors," Jeanne Murray Walker -- "Rowers on the Schuylkill," Leonard Kress -- "Listening for Bridge Builders," David Livewell

Sommario/riassunto

Over the years, Pennsylvania has been graced with an abundance of writers whose work draws imaginatively on the state’s history and culture. Common Wealth sings the essence of Pennsylvania through contemporary poetry. Whether Pennsylvania is their point of origin or their destination, the featured poets ultimately find what matters: heritage, pride, work, inventiveness, struggle, faith, beauty, hope. Keystone poets Marjorie Maddox and Jerry Wemple celebrate Pennsylvania with this wide range of new and veteran poets, including former state poet Samuel Hazo, National Book Award winner Gerald Stern, Pulitzer Prize winners Maxine Kumin, W. S. Merwin, and W. D. Snodgrass, and Reading-born master John Updike. The book’s 103 poets also include such noted authors as Diane Ackerman, Maggie Anderson, Jan Beatty, Robin Becker, Jim Daniels, Toi Derricotte, Gary Fincke, Harry Humes, Julia Kasdorf, Ed Ochester, Jay Parini, Len Roberts, Sonia Sanchez, Betsy Sholl, and Judith Vollmer. In these pages, poems sketch the landscapes and cultural terrain of the state, delving into the history, traditions, and people of Philadelphia, “Dutch” country, the coal-mining region, the Poconos, and the Lehigh Valley; the Three Rivers region; the Laurel Highlands; and Erie and the Allegheny National Forest. Theirs is a complex narrative cultivated for centuries in coal mines, kitchens, elevated trains, and hometowns, a tale that illuminates the sanctity of the commonplace—the daily chores of a Mennonite housewife, a polka dance in Coaldale, the late shift at a steel factory, the macadam of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. With its panoramic vision of Pennsylvania, its culture, and its thriving literary heritage, Common



Wealth is a collection of remembrance for a state that continues to inspire countless contributions to American literature.