Luxury
Poems
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Compelling. . . . [Schultz’s] works are replete with insights and nuggets of wisdom.”— Washington Post
With humor, irony, and celebration, Luxury explores the comfort and sustenance of life, the bittersweet clarity of aging, and the anxiety of existence.
“A notable addition to a body of work that is durable, compelling, and instructive.” — David Wojahn
“A snapshot of our malaise ‘one luminous, lost imagination at a time.’ ” — Millions
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Schultz, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Failure, adopts a philosophical approach to aging, suicide, and the passing of time in his eighth collection. He remarks on the present as something "I seem to have less to do with lately,/ standing as I do off somewhere nearby,/ confused as to what just occurred, and why." Schultz also notes that "the future remains translucent/ and unambiguous/ in its desire to elude me." The work is largely concerned with the past, refracting through a singular lens the many forms suicide can take: "I was going to college in six months/ when Dad had a stroke/ and his doctor said: If he doesn't stop working/ he'll be dead soon.' " Luxury assumes the guise of a 1955 Pontiac station wagon, which may have been one reason Dad "got up earlier each morning,/ worked harder,/ longer each day." Luxury is also the fact of aging into one's 70s, "of living perpetually/ on the edge/ of grace/ and death." References to such thinkers as Aristotle, Augustine, and Nietszche prepare readers for a close engagement with Camus. In the four-part title poem, the speaker and several others seek "the same unsolvable answer/ Camus sought/to the absurd paradox/of suicide." Throughout this emotional search, Schultz gives complex questions the thorough, honest, and lyrical treatment they deserve.