Barefoot is Kevin Hart’s eighth collection of poems; it is rich in elegies, meditations on lost love, and celebrations of new love. The title speaks of mourning, pilgrimage, and the direct sensuous contact of flesh with earth. Harold Bloom has long extolled Hart as a “visionary of desire, ” and in this collection we find that vision deepened and that desire extended. Never before has Hart stretched his range of inspiration quite so far; while continuing to draw from Christianity, he also responds to the rich heritage of American Blues, and reveals a wit as sharp as a razor’s edge. The poetry is at once religious poetry and love poetry; indeed, the “religious poetry” is itself love poetry. Always, Hart speaks to us in words that seem inevitable in their simplicity. As he himself has written, “The best conductor of mystery is clarity. The true bearer of complexity is simplicity.” Barefoot will delight poetry lovers everywhere.
Tabella dei contenuti
1
Nights
Little Book of Mourning
Barefoot
Father
Grief
Old Crow
Eclipse
Again
Downstairs
2
Little Song Book of the Dark One
3
Northern Nights
February
The Problem of Evil
The Future
My Death
Heaven: A Memoir
Prayer
Morning Rain
4
Darkness
The Empty Chair
Slant
Apart
My Daughters
Death and Some Friends
5
Little Songbook
Partial Eclipse
Summer in Melbourne
Little Book of Early Love
Poor Little Soul
The Canon
Almost Classical
Merci
Happiness
Sugar
Circa l’autore
Kevin Hart is an Anglo-Australian theologian, philosopher and poet. He is currently Edwin B. Kyle Professor of Christian Studies and Chair of the Religious Studies Department at the University of Virginia. He has received multiple awards for his poetry, including the Christopher Brennan Award and the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry twice. He teaches at the University of Virginia and is the author of nine volumes of poetry, including Young Rain (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009).