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That Swing

Poems, 2008–2016

X J Kennedy author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Johns Hopkins University Press

Published:28th Apr '17

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That Swing cover

The latest rollicking verse from award-winning poet X. J. Kennedy.

This wise and clever book is rounded out with adept translations of work by Charles Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme, Arthur Rimbaud, and others.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 Galapagos 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, Stephane Mallarme, Arthur Rimbaud, and others.

Here, in Kennedy's signature combination of storytelling, formal nimbleness, and comic moments mixed with reverie and melancholy, we find the poet assessing the past and looking out on a future beyond his own lifetime.
The Hudson Review
Typical of Kennedy’s versatility and willingness to defy poetic expectations . . .
Los Angeles Review of Books
Now eighty-six, we should all hope Kennedy amends this closing prayer, and asks the Lord to let him produce quality work well into his nineties.
Claremont Review of Books

ISBN: 9781421422442

Dimensions: 216mm x 140mm x 8mm

Weight: 136g

96 pages