The emperor of water clocks : poems

Summary:

"If I am not Ulysses, I am / his dear, ruthless half brother." So announces Yusef Komunyakaa early in his lush collection. And Ulysses is but one of the characters the author conjures over the course of this densely lyrical book. Here his speaker observes a doomed court jester; here another recalls Napoleon as the emperor "tells the doctor to cut out his heart / & send it to the empress, Marie-Louise"; and here he is just a man, reflecting on why he'd "rather die a poet / than a warrior." Through these mutations and migrations and permutations and peregrinations, there are constants: Komumyakaa's jazz-inflected rhythms, his effortlessly surreal images, his celebration of natural beauty and of love.

Record details

ISBN: 0374536570
ISBN: 9780374536572
ISBN: 9780374147839
ISBN: 0374147833
Physical Description: 115 pages ; 21 cm
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: New York : Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2016.

Content descriptions

Formatted Contents Note:

The land of Cockaigne -- Omens -- The water clock -- The emperor -- The fool -- The raven master -- The king's salt -- Lemons -- Turner's great tussle with water -- Sperm oil -- Nocturnal houses -- Augury at sunset -- Skulking across snow -- Sprung rhythm of a landscape -- Rock me, mercy -- Islands -- Latitudes -- Rum, sodomy, & the lash -- The relic -- Il Duce's villa -- Et tu, Brutus? -- The gold pistol -- Faces at the window -- Café du Rat Mort -- The circus -- Minotaur -- Dear Pandora -- Transference & bling -- Scrimmage -- Ironwork -- common wealth -- Torsion -- Always a way -- Fortress -- Longitudes -- Daytime begins with a line by Anna Akhmatova -- Michio Ito's fox & hawk -- Caffe Reggio -- Praise be -- Krar -- Dead reckoning II -- A night in Tunisia -- The king -- The day is saw Barack Obama reading Derek Walcott's Collected Poems -- The green horse -- Ode to the oud -- With my fish-skin drum -- Envoy to Palestine -- Timbuktu -- Monolith -- Ghazal, after Ferguson -- Interrogation -- Precious metals -- The enchanted diver -- A prayer -- The work of Orpheus -- Empyrean Isles -- Springtime in Atlantis -- Notes -- Acknowledgments.