Abandoned Poems

(Paperback)

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Stanley Moss is ninety-three years old, still kicking sixty-two-yard field goals through the uprights of American poetry. His Abandoned Poems (Paul Valery wrote, "A poem is never finished, only abandoned") consists of 120 pages of new work written since his 2016 prize-winning book, Almost Complete Poems. The truth is Moss has a unique voice in the history of American poetry. He honors the English language. This book is full of invisible life-giving discoveries the reader has almost seen, and you might say Moss has discovered a new continent, a new planet or two--or simply it's fun. There is a final section, "Apocrypha and Long Abandoned Poems," which includes early misplaced work never published, and new versions of previously published poems. Bingo.

Reviews

"'Death is a many-colored harlequin,' asserts Stanley Moss on his 92nd birthday. Undaunted, outrageously alive, Moss in these Abandoned Poems flaunts more colors than the Grim Reaper ever dreamed of, laughs in his face, rhymes with abandon, makes a more joyful noise unto the Lord, and struts with Baudelaire. This is a book to hold onto for dear life." Rosanna Warren

"Magisterial. . . Abandoned Poems is magnificent. I've read it several times with greater and greater pleasure. Its verbal generosity and bravura, its humanity, the quality and quantity of information which integrates into poetry of the highest order make it a continuing delight."Marilyn Hacker

"The man is indomitable. Moss is now in his 90s. His 10th decade, and so how can we not see this book as heroic Through the years, Moss has produced excellent poetry and published multiple books by other writers. Music and artistry do not diminish with age. I say amen to that. These poems are strong-footed and as is his tradition bow to great art and music. He sees life and writes of it purposefully through the riches of the intellectual world, his friends, and experiences. The constant motion of a rich inner life makes Moss a terrific storyteller. Theres strength in every line; he takes no prisoners; says what he wants just the way he wants it until it shines the way he wants. He brings his A-game to every line, and it could be that this is one definition of greatness."Washington Independent Review of Books

Author Bio

STANLEY MOSS was born in 1925 in Woodhaven, New York. Age seventeen, he enlisted in the US Navy. He kicked around Trinity College and Yale University, worked as a counterspy for Local 65, sang in a band and played the bass, worked at New Directions, for Botteghe Oscure in Rome, taught in Rome and Barcelona, was poetry editor of Book Week and New American Review, and is an Old Master dealer specializing in Spanish and Italian paintings, many of which he has discovered. Self-taught in art history, he has sold pictures to the world's major museums. He is publisher and editor at Sheep Meadow Press. Moss's poems appear frequently in the pages of the New Yorker, Poetry, the American Poetry Review, the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, Tikkun, the Yale Review, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, to name a few. He is translated into German by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, into Chinese by Fu Hao, and into Spanish by Valerie Mejer. His most recent book is Almost Complete Poems, which won the 2016 National Jewish Book Award for Poetry. He lives on a farm in Dutchess County, New York, with his wife, the forgiving Jane Moss.