Roberts, Len, 1947-2007.

The disappearing trick : poems / by Len Roberts. - Urbana : University of Illinois Press, (c)2007. - 1 online resource. - Illinois poetry series .

Includes bibliographies and index.

Washing the steps -- My old friend, my daughter, October, Wassergass -- I blame it on him -- I cant forget you -- silent archangels -- eternal present of the ancient Chinese poems -- Cover girl sparkle -- Flicking -- Receiving at the kneeling rail -- disappearing trick -- Pear tart -- Pitching in the Aggie -- room for Jesus -- right dress -- starlings fill the trees -- At the breakfast table with my seventeen-year-old son -- Car on the road, late July, Wassergass -- Letter to HC in the hospital -- MISSING -- Fireflies at the Cohoes Drive-in -- saints always -- Card game -- Indulgences for the dead -- In the expert valet clothing shop -- Another lent, the purple shrouds -- Trying to read Han Shan -- Limbo, Wassergass -- Poison sumac -- Lucky -- Suet -- Bullfrog, Wassergass -- Sequence -- Sleep-Eaze -- chasm -- Four-way switch -- ninth circle, Wassergass -- I keep repeating the name of the concerto -- Letter #3 to Carruth about the heron -- Hanging Tinsel -- Snowflakes in hell -- Considering Aunt Bea's white Toyota Celica -- Right after mass -- Inside the dim kitchen the rosary -- Window candle.

In The Disappearing Trick, Len Roberts wrestles with the loss of loved ones--whether that loss be through death, a son moving away to college, or simply how people fade from our lives and memories. Hybrids of the narrative and lyric form, these poems are models of indirect statement that have, as Sharon Olds has said, emotional courage, powerful music, and a deep balance.? Like the light shining on a face, or a girls thigh back in a sixth-grade class, the poems often come as Proustian flashes--lasting just a second, but seeming eternal--amid an increasing darkness. _x000B_



9780252092275 9781283583299

2019718615


Loss (Psychology)--Poetry.
American poetry--20th century.
American poetry--21st century.


Electronic Books.

PS3568 / .D573 2007