Abundant Life: New & Selected Poems - Paperback

by Hank Lazer (Author)

Portions, spirit, elegy, lyrics, awakenings, sutra, serendipity, loss, mindedness, rebelling, reveling, unraveling, sounderings, melody, offkey, noisily, rhythm, negation, improvisation, abandon, deflection, renewal, cascade, cadence, grace, weaving, enigma, shekinah: a door, a jar. These are a few of his favorite things. -- Charles Bernstein Hank Lazer's Abundant Life: New and Selected Poems shows how Lazer thinks with and through writing. All of it is literally experimental in that each new project is a challenge he gives himself, a way to experience life differently. Here we have his " shape writing" but also short, jagged lyrics reminiscent of Creeley, and long narrative poems about losing one's parents. What unites this work is Lazer's joint commitment to mindfulness (a quest to find the sacred within the everyday) and to relationality, to dialogue. His books arise and exist in conversation with others: philosophers-- such as Levinas and Merleau-Ponty-- as well as Zen monks, and admired poets including Emily Dickinson and Creeley. This work may be heady, but it is also deeply human. -- Rae Armantrout

Author Biography

Hank Lazer, PhD (Author), Tuscaloosa, Alabama (United States of America) - Hank Lazer has published thirty-five books of poetry, including his most recent, As We Vanish from Public View (7 Points Press) and field recordings of mind in morning (with 15 music-poetry tracks with Holland Hopson on banjo - available on YouTube). Along with Abundant Life: New & Selected Poems, Lazer has published a companion volume of essays, poetics, and interviews: What Were You Thinking: Essays 2006- 2024 (Lavender Ink). In April 2015, Lazer was selected for the state of Alabama's highest literary award, the Harp