Republic Café
David Biespiel author Linda Bierds editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:University of Washington Press
Published:1st Feb '19
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Inspired by Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour, and sharing the spirit of Tomas Transtromer’s Baltics and Yehuda Amichai’s Time, Republic Café is a meditation on love during a time of violence, and a tally of what appears and disappears in every moment. Mindful of epigenetic experience as our bodies become living vessels for history’s tragedies, David Biespiel praises not only the essentialness of our human memory, but also the sanctity of our flawed, human forgetting.
A single sequence, arranged in fifty-four numbered sections, Republic Café details the experience of lovers in Portland, Oregon, on the eve and days following September 11, 2001. To touch a loved one’s bare skin, even in the midst of great tragedy, is simultaneously an act of remembering and forgetting. This is a tale of love and darkness, a magical portrait of the writer as a moral and imaginative participant in the political life of his nation.
"Arguably his finest work. . . Republic Café seems effortlessly ambitious in scope. Biespiel explores broad, overarching themes that few poets are willing to meet head on today. Though the story background is horrific, the poem is hopeful. . . . It reminds us that love is key to our survival and that forgiveness is a requirement, not an option. Republic Café is the graceful and moving work of a poet at the top of his game. It should be part of your permanent library."
* Plume *"David Biespiel’s sixth and latest book of poems, Republic Café, should be within your reach as soon as you can make it happen. The book shouldn’t be placed in between others on your bookshelf or in your 'books to read' pile. Republic Café should be where you can reach it so it can open its door for you, seat you immediately, and begin giving you what you didn’t know you could order or hunger for."
* The Rumpus *"Eloquent and personal, beautiful and wrenching, these poems mine deeply the nature of love, violence, and memory, drawing you into a world of evil and pain but also touch, healing, and love...Not to be missed."
* Library Journal *"Biespiel's voice truly soars. . . .Throughout the course of the collection, [he] weaves a narrative, of lovers whose lives are full of foliage and feeling before being ripped apart by history."
* Willamette Week *"Republic Café calls the liminal space we straddle in times of crisis home, out of necessity as well as courage."
* Colorado ReviISBN: 9780295744537
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 295g
96 pages