Hello I Must Be Going
Poems
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- USD 10.99
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- USD 10.99
Descripción editorial
Finalist, 2023 NBCC Award for Poetry
Finalist, 2022 California Book Award for Poetry
Hello I Must Be Going, David Hernandez’s fifth collection of poems, offers a unique take on poetry informed by works of art, in particular the work of artist Ed Ruscha. With narrative and lyrical brushstrokes, Hernandez crafts vibrant landscapes that depict the chaos of the modern world and the beauty entwined within it. Hello I Must Be Going pulses with originality. This is a book of our time, and of time itself—of unrest, loss, grief, and “this endless parade / shimmering toward silence.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The intriguing fifth collection from Hernandez (Dear, Sincerely) uses visual art as a foil for the unique possibilities of language. The poems in the first section take their titles from paintings by Ed Ruscha, whose work often placed words over color fields. The poems build scenes without describing the paintings directly, as in "S.S. Nevertheless": "He is almost// a brook when he wanders around the yard, practically a river." In the second section, each title begins "Landscape with..." but seems to reference no preexisting work by Ruscha or otherwise. Hernandez mobilizes visual art's vocabulary: the sun sears "a bright white hole// through the canvas," but there is "No museum guard or docent to tell/ what it all means"; "You look closely,/ closer still—until/ a museum guard clears his throat." In the third section, other artists are invoked, bringing maker, art, and viewer together: "Praise the dead for bestowing us these, our waves./ Downstream, we'll do the same." Readers will appreciate the specific, thoughtful attention these poems generate about depression, government violence, and parental aging, as well as the inventive investigations of visual art motifs.