9780814348017 : you-are-my-joy-and-pain-madgett

Paperback / softback

80 Pages

$17.99 USD

Format	Paperback / softback
Published	October 6, 2020
ISBN-13	9780814348017
Language	English
Pages	80
Height	9.00 Inches (US)
Width	6.00 Inches (US)
Unit weight	.5 Pounds (US)
List Prices	$17.99 USD, £13.50 GBP
ONIX	v2.1 Reference

You Are My Joy and Pain

Name: You Are My Joy and Pain
Price: 17.99 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Naomi Long Madgett
ISBN: 9780814348017

Love Poems

By Naomi Long Madgett

Wayne State University Press

You Are My Joy and Pain is Naomi Long Madgett's latest and possibly most endearing poetry collection. Bill Harris, a 2011 Kresge Foundation Eminent Artist, said of the book, "Even with the evidence of over a half-century or more of first-rate poetic artistry by Madgett, this collection is a breath-arresting surprise and delight. Poem-by-poem and section-by-section amaze. Each poem in the collection is a master class in technique and in her ability to transpose an idea into a tightly composed example of the craft of poetry."

You Are My Joy and Pain receives its name from the Billie Holiday song "Don't Explain" and is divided into three parts. The first part, "A Promise of Sun," contains fourteen poems relating to the hopeful and joyful beginning of a new relationship. The second part, "Trinity: A Dream Sequence," consists of twenty poems with religious imagery and encompasses both the beginning and the end of a relationship. The third part, "Stormy Weather," includes thirty-two poems that relate to the heartbreaking experience of a love gone wrong. These are not love poems in the abstract—the richness with which Madgett writes hints at the firsthand experience of a lifetime of loving.

While several anthologies of love poems exist in the world, it is rare to find a single-author collection that so closely examines love in all of its messy and beautiful layers. Readers will identify with the hope and disappointment that Madgett presents in these poems.

About the Author

Naomi Long Madgett, Poet Laureate of Detroit since 2001, is author of ten books of poetry, most recently Connected Islands. She has edited two anthologies, including Adam of Ife: Black Women in Praise of Black Men, and is author of a textbook, A Student's Guide to Creative Writing, as well as her autobiography, Pilgrim Journey. Madgett is professor emerita of English at Eastern Michigan University.

Reviews

"Even with the evidence of over a half-century or more of first-rate poetic artistry by Madgett, this collection is a breath-arresting surprise and delight. Poem-by-poem and section-by-section amaze. Each poem in the collection is a master class in technique and in her ability to transpose an idea into a tightly composed example of the craft of poetry."—Bill Harris, 2011 Kresge Foundation Eminent Artist

"Naomi Long Madgett is a prolific and iconic force in American poetry. The publication of her tenth collection at the age of 97 is possibly an unparalleled event. This work is a blessing that assures that the range, depth, profundity of her voice, and complex subtlety of her poetics will continue to impact, nourish, and advance literary vision."—Melba Joyce Boyd, poet laureate, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History

"Love's blossoming thrills, passionate commitments, and painful demise form the arc of Naomi Long Madgett's You Are My Joy and Pain and reflect a lifetime of love. Honesty, wit, and formal dexterity undergird these poems. I especially love how Madgett's steadiness of spirit endures throughout, like 'bread that will sustain.'"—Terry Blackhawk, Author of One Less River

"An epic expiration of love and obsession. A masterful achievement by an indomitable spirit."—Toi Derricotte, Author of I: New and Selected Poems

"Madgett's poems present themselves with an honest approachable ease, and then comes the light, and the wish that you had the wisdom to craft these gems hard pressed under molten heat to make them into the diamonds that result. They are accessible works of art that grant the reader to understand love and pain. The reader will know after reflection that he or she is in the presence of a master."—Herbert Woodward Martin, Author of the Shape of Regret (Wayne State University Press, 2019)

Publisher	Wayne State University Press
Series	Made in Michigan Writer Series
BISAC Subject Headings	POETRY / American / African American (52 Titles) POETRY / Subjects & Themes / Love & Erotica (9 Titles) POETRY / Women Authors (88 Titles)

Format	Paperback / softback
Published	October 6, 2020
ISBN-13	9780814348017
Language	English
Pages	80
Height	9.00 Inches (US)
Width	6.00 Inches (US)
Unit weight	.5 Pounds (US)
List Prices	$17.99 USD, £13.50 GBP
ONIX	v2.1 Reference