{"product_id":"9780811208352","title":"Of the Great House","description":"\u003cp\u003e“A book of poems should have exactly the same fullness and risk and lay itself open to the same judgment as a life,” says Allen Grossman. \u003cem\u003eOf the Great House\u003c\/em\u003e, which includes sections of \u003cem\u003eA Harlot’s Hire\u003c\/em\u003e (1961), Grossman’s first published book, as well as his most recent poetry, presents an anatomy of the poet’s working life. The title poem invokes “the sighted singer, in a\/Passionate, laboring house,” who confronts those figures in his unconscious which influence and interfere with poetic vision, braving the necessary destructions until “there is nothing in place of what\/I know, the only thing that is––the world.” Part II, “The Pictures in a Man’s Life,” seeks out relationships among the haunting, inspiring, “demonically incoherent facts of life in the world––the poet’s parents, yellowwoods blooming on a lawn, closeness to an earlier self. “The Dream Which Wakes the Sleeper Does Not End” contains poems from an earlier life, and \u003cem\u003eOf the Great House\u003c\/em\u003e closes with “An Inventory of Destructions,” a summing and a summoning: “the poet speaks to the unborn in the\/language of the born, and to the born he speaks\/The language of the unborn––Break down and build!\/Destructions are of the poet. Death is of God.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"New Directions Publishing Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47020632735984,"sku":"9780811208352","price":6.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780811208352_p0.jpg?v=1763741681","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780811208352","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}