Research Catalog

Title

That swing : poems, 2008-2016 / X.J. Kennedy.

Author

Kennedy, X. J.

Publication

• Baltimore, Maryland : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.
• ©2017

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Woodberry Poetry Room (Harvard College Library). Collections, repository. poe

Description

72 pages; 22 cm.

Summary

"In this, his ninth book of poetry, lyric master X. J. Kennedy regales his readers with engaging rhythm fittingly signaled by the book’s title, which echoes Duke Ellington’s jazz classic "It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)." Kennedy’s poems, infused with verve and surprise, are by turns irresistibly funny and sharply insightful about life in America. Some poems are personal recollections of childhood and growing up, as in "My Mother Consigns to the Flames My Trove of Comic Books." "Thomas Hardy’s Obsequies" tells the bizarre true account of the literary giant’s burial. Other poems portray memorable characters, from Jane Austen ("Jane Austen Drives to Alton in Her Donkey Trap") to a giant land tortoise ("Lonesome George") to a slow-witted man hired to cook for a nudist colony ("Pudge Wescott"). Kennedy is a storyteller of the first order, relating tales of travel to far-reaching places, from the Galápagos Islands and Tiananmen Square to the hectic back streets of Bamako, Mali. This wise and clever book is rounded out with adept translations of work by Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, and others."--Back cover.

Series Statement

Johns Hopkins: Poetry and Fiction

Uniform Title

• Poems. Selections
• Project Muse UPCC books
• Johns Hopkins, poetry and fiction

Alternative Title

Poems.

Subject

• Poetry
• American poetry

Genre/Form

• poetry.
• Poetry
• Poésie.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Recollections -- Saints and others -- Versions -- Diversions -- Easters -- Last acts.

ISBN

• 9781421422442
• 1421422441
• 9781421422459 (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

^^2016035399

OCLC

957723306

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library