{"product_id":"9781852248338","title":"Update on the Descent","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eUpdate on the Descent\u003c\/i\u003e,\u003c\/b\u003e Ellen Hinsey draws on personal experience and family tragedy to forge a masterful meditation on the extremes of the human condition. A poet who situates herself in a landscape steeped in the tragic history and artistic splendor of Europe, Hinsey suffuses her work with the urgency of historical memory. Alternating lyrics, aphorism, anti-lyrics, and philosophical notebooks, she explores the nature of terror, war, tyranny, and violence as well as reconciliation and renewal of the human spirit. Called by Carolyn Forche, \"A true poet, whose sense of line, cadence, and tonality is unsurpassed among poets of her generation,\" Hinsey brilliantly contributes to the tradition of poetry as a witness to history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Ellen Hinsey has manifested a range of concern and a sensitivity to larger human issues which is the sine qua non\u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eof authentic poetry. She has found a way to be both truthful and original, to make poems which are absorbing and enlightening, historically pertinent and philosophically urgent. . . . To our great good fortune they succeed in their unlikely ambitions.\" --\u003cb\u003eC. K. Williams\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"With this book, Ellen Hinsey confirms her status as one of the most profound and intense poets of her generation. \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eUpdate on the Descent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eis arranged in an extremely sophisticated pattern, alternating Dantean visions, contemporary accounts of torture, and thoughts on our human condition which crystallize into formulae possessing all the depth and darkness of Heraclitus. It has the touch of strangeness indispensable for any great poetry, but its moral message is straightforward and full of inner force.\" --\u003cb\u003eTomas Venclova, author of \u003ci\u003eWinter Dialogue\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Junction: Selected Poems\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"In this meditation on the \u003ci\u003evita activa\u003c\/i\u003e, Hinsey journeys poetically and philosophically through the ruins of what it means to be human in the twenty-first century. Human nature is this lyric art's first-person, and its utterance is protean. Throughout we hear the \u003ci\u003ecris de coeur \u003c\/i\u003eof our time, from a scaffold of collective memory artfully constructed by one of our most compelling poets. Hinsey's sense of line, cadence, and tonality is remarkable, and she deserves a serious and attentive readership in this country.\" --\u003cb\u003eCarolyn Forche \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Bloodaxe Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47058310103280,"sku":"9781852248338","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781852248338_p0.jpg?v=1763596899","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781852248338","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}