Earth Apples
The Poetry of Edward Abbey
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
Poems about love and landscapes by the author of the classic Desert Solitaire, an “environmentalist, nature writer, novelist and all-around iconoclast” (The New York Times).
While better known for his nature writing and his comic classic The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey was also an enthusiastic creator of verse. The New York Times called his memoir Desert Solitaire “deeply poetic”—and now Earth Apples gives us his actual poetry, in Abbey’s first and only collection.
Whether writing about vast desert landscapes, New York City, or a love of bawdy women, Abbey's verse is eloquent, irreverent, and unapologetically passionate. The poems gathered here, published digitally for the first time, are culled from Abbey’s journals and give an insightful and unique glance into the mind of this literary legend.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Best known for his nonfiction, the late Abbey (Desert Solitaire) was not a poet, and didn't claim to be one, but did write poetry. This book is his first collection. It may interest Abbey's fans, but not poetry readers, for the most part-too much of the writing is self-consciously rhetorical, doggerel-like, or Victorian in sentiment (though not in the sexually frank poems, more energetic and reminiscent of Bukowski). Occasionally Abbey seems to have relaxed and written in a serenely evocative way about desert landscape (``American Picnic'') or with moving simplicity and directness to honor and acknowledge a beloved person (``Love Poem''). More often, though, cornball humor needs decanting here, and overwritten ditties beg for prose translations. A few prose poems are also included. McCurdy's black-and-white prints are, as usual, exquisite.
