Tablature

Dazzling poems about landscape, music, and the course of love that go straight to the heart. Cover THE HUGH MACLENNAN POETRY SERIES Title Copyright Contents I - LANDSCAPES ECLOGUE REGRET ALMOST NOVEMBER, IOWA THE UNMASKING FIRST SNOW, LAST STRAW BEING POSSIBLE BEING POSSIBLE II LOREM IPSUM A MIND LIKE A PACK OF SCATTERED CARDS THE ROCK THAT LOOKS LIKE A BEAR THE SKUNK ON THE BRIDGE OVER THE GIHON RIVER SPRING SNOW, VERMONT TRANCES OF THOUGHT OBJECTS ON A DESK IMPROVISATION ON A LINE OF HÖLDERLIN THE LAST SPOT OF EARTH’S ORB HISTORY II - LOVE POEMS AND OTHERS AND TO LIVE WITHOUT A PLAN (A LOVE POEM) THIS KISS TO THE ENTIRE WORLD NULLUS AMOR TANTI EST OBSESSIONS INVASIVE PROCEDURES SCHEHERAZADE GARGLED THE MIDDLE OF A LIFE DEEP SNOW PECULIAR HEART GREY DAY, DEATH IS FAR AWAY THE WARNING FEBRUARY 15TH POETRY RAIN ON THE WINDOW THE WORDSWORTH THEFTS POEM INCORPORATING A FRAGMENT OF IBYCUS THE SORROW OF INACHUS ARCHILOCHUS UNWITTINGLY EXCHANGES A COW FOR POETRY BEYOND RECOGNITION LOST IN LOVE COME WHAT COME WOULD HELEN WHITE RAIN IN A BLACK SKY MAKING LOVE AT 10 P.M. III - MUSIC AT THE HEART THREE MINUTES OF ECSTASY WITH ARNOLD SCHOENBERG THE SILENCE OF AN AFTERNOON OF MUSIC THE BLUE PIANO POLYPHONIC SETTING FOR WHITE THE YSAŸE SONATAS LUTE MUSIC BERCEUSE A JOYFUL NOISE TUMULT FAREWELL TO STROMNESS STRING QUARTET IN F, OP. 41, NO. 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND NOTES From the "rubble [that] is the order of the day" in the opening poem to the longing for a "radiant happy ending" in the book's final line, Tablature is a book of poems that traverses a great swath of the heart's experience in compelling and lucid poetic language. Bruce Whiteman's first book of poems in traditional lined form in thirty years is by turns learned and allusive, and emotionally expressive and despairing. These poems engage three large and powerful subjects: the landscapes we see and abide in, music that is comforting and a guide to hearing the poem's compulsions, and love - erotic, domestic, and enduring. Whiteman is keenly observant of the natural world of birds and trees, of rocks and water, alive to the pressures and hurts of daily life, and above all to the ways in which music rescues us from dependency and pulls us back from a "cultivated hysteria." If there is an "intimate / apocalypse," there is also "radiant hope." The poems in Tablature capture readers with their singular music and their bright and unblinking takes on the quotidian challenges of living a life. These are poems of a highly tuned sensibility matched by a sweetness of language. Landscapes -- Love Poems And Others -- Music At The Heart. Bruce Whiteman. Poems. Issued Also In Electronic Format.