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A Frieze for a Temple of Love

A Frieze for a Temple of Love

by Edward Field

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Product Details

Black Sparrow Press

Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-57423-068-0
Pages: 228
Size: 6.33" x 9.4"
Published: January 1998
Softcover
ISBN: 1-57423-067-0
Pages: 228
Size: 6" x 9"
Published: January 1998
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Coming on the heels of the very well received Counting Myself Lucky: Selected Poems 1963-1992, this new book of poems confirms Edward Field's reputation of one of our finest poets in the discursive narrative tradition. Field, a native New Yorker and longtime gay activist, writes poetry that is literate, immediate, funny and completely personal. These unforgettable poems are small essays on the human condition spoken by a trusted friend.

Among the surprise pleasures of Field's Frieze is "The Poetry File," a long sequence of prose ruminations on the American poetry scene in our time. At once gossipy, dishy, knowlegeable, witty, eloquent, this "insider" account names names without batting an eye: "Of course, poetry really has an inner elite. There is no democracy of standards in poetry . . . . To be a successful poet today you have to be very sophisticated, smooth, unassailable . . . self-referential."

Ed Field's poetry remains always referential to a world rather than to himself. And that world is a very real one.

"When I started writing," he recalled, "I wanted my poetry to save the world . . . . It has to do with poetry as magic, the magic of words.

"I still believe it's a kind of magic."

Edward Field
Edward Field grew up in Lynbrook, Long Island, New York, where he played cello in the Field Family Trio, which had a weekly radio program on WGBB Freeport. His musical ambitions were cut short by World War II, in which he served in the Air Force, but the war also introduced him to another mode of expression. While convalescing, he received a poetry anthology from a Red Cross worker, and a new love was born. Field's poetry has won many accolades, including the Lamont Poetry Prize, a Shelley Memorial Award, a Rome Prize, and a Lambda Award, among others. He lives in Greenwich Village with his partner Neil Derrick, with whom he has written a multi-generational historical novel about the Village.