New England Primer, Poems by Bruce Guernsey
The poems of Bruce Guernsey's New England Primer are hard, clear, and sharply etched, like the ice that so often permeates the landscape he depicts.
Sample Poems by Bruce Guernsey
"These wonderful, finely crafted poems are deceptively quiet like the landscapes they lovingly depict and the lives they choose to observe with such deep affection. And yet, there is much here that is very dark, and haunted not only by a nostalgia for a lost, more innocent past, but by what Robert Lowell calls 'the dark downward and vegetating kingdom/of the fish and reptile.' The unconscious is very much alive in these poems, which is to say, they delve into areas of human experience that can sometimes freeze you to the bone like diving into a perfectly calm, New Hampshire pond in early spring."--Michael Van Walleghen
"Bruce Guernsey's truths are important. His very human poems--so often about innocent things like fishing, splitting wood, or simply walking--reveal another world where an owl's eyes become a hangman's, or God, a swaddled, illegitimate child. These discoveries are even more disturbing because they come from words so clean and direct."--Paul Zimmer
A native New Englander, Bruce Guernsey is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Eastern Illinois University. His poems have appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry, American Scholar, and many of the quarterlies. Among his collections of poetry is January Thaw from the University of Pittsburgh Press. He edits The Spoon River Poetry Review.
ISBN: 978-1934999226, 80 pages, $18.00