{"product_id":"9781986079969","title":"Along the Kaw, 1968-1978: By the Rivers of Edo, vol. I (By the Rivers of Edo: Selected Poems 1968-2018)","description":"Chronologically, these poems begin in my graduate school years, which started in 1967. The next year I went to the Vietnam war, came back in 1970, finishing in 1976. I took my first full-time teaching job in Algeria, found it not to my satisfaction, finishing my \"year abroad\" in Spain. In the Fall of 1977, I came back to KU and got a part-time post to hold me over until I could find another full-time position, this time in Japan. From Algeria, I brought back a long poem called \"Constantine Journal\" which later was on my website for some years. I've taken it down and print it here for the first time. By 1968, when I was twenty-two years old, I had begun to take to heart Rimbaud's drunken-boat instruction that the poet must derange his mind. It was time for me to begin, though I had no idea of beginning anything. It was all desperation. So many things had gone wrong and continued wrong. I was a miserable worm and believed I was damned. I couldn't get the story of love to go right. I took thorazine. I saw a psychologist once a week. I was in a state of depression, and the only dependable medication I found for it was alcohol. Thus, \"Kaw fished the innumerable river.\" The poems reflect none of the good times that were part of graduate-school life.This is largely deliberate, for I believed then that poetry was a way of dealing with misery, and that happiness did not call for expression in verse. I even thought that melancholy was the more important emotion. After all, darkness identified and defined me, whereas sunshine did not. In long retrospect, I would now call the melancholy reflected in my verse of this period the struggles of a much delayed adolescence. I was Esau. I'd \"sold my birthright \/ for this mess of learning.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e• \u003cb\u003eAuthor: \u003c\/b\u003eWayne Pounds\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e• \u003cb\u003ePublisher: \u003c\/b\u003eCreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e• \u003cb\u003ePublication Date: \u003c\/b\u003eFeb 28, 2018\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e• \u003cb\u003eNumber of Pages: \u003c\/b\u003e82 pages\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e• \u003cb\u003eLanguage: \u003c\/b\u003eEnglish\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e• \u003cb\u003eBinding: \u003c\/b\u003ePaperback\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e• \u003cb\u003eISBN-10: \u003c\/b\u003e1986079961\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e• \u003cb\u003eISBN-13: \u003c\/b\u003e9781986079969\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50329543082289,"sku":"9781986079969","price":12.47,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0798\/8215\/8385\/files\/9781986079969__57582.jpg?v=1732097852","url":"https:\/\/www.recomparo.com\/products\/9781986079969","provider":"ReComparo.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}