Jerry Harp

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Biographical note:  Jerry Harp grew up in Mt. Vernon, Indiana (U.S.A.). He has degrees from Saint Meinrad College (B.A.), Saint Louis University (M.A.), the University of Florida (M.F.A.), and the University of Iowa (2002). His books of poetry include Creature (Salt Publishing, 2003) and Gatherings (Ashland Poetry Press, 2004). He co-edited, with Jan Weissmiller, A Poetry Criticism Reader (University of Iowa Press, 2006). His reviews appear regularly in Pleiades. He teaches at Lewis & Clark College.

BIC Basic

EAN13:  9781844712731
ISBN-10:  1844712737
ISBN-13:  9781844712731
Author:  Jerry Harp
Title:  Urban Flowers, Concrete Plains
Series:  Salt Modern Poets
Product class:  BC
Language:  eng
Audience:  General/trade
BIC subject category:  CTCH1
Publisher:  Salt Publishing
Pub date:  15-Jul-06
Extent:  116pp
Height:  216 mm
Width:  140 mm
Thickness:  7 mm
Weight:  174 gms
Supplier:   Gardners Books
Supplier:   Ingram Book Group
Supplier:   Inbooks (James Bennett)
Availability:  IP
Price:  GBP 9.99
Price:  USD 15.95
Rights:  World

Main description:  Urban Flowers, Concrete Plains, Jerry Harp’s third volume of poems, takes up where his first book, Creature (Salt Publishing, 2003), left off. The Creature continues his sojourn in the world, solitary, wandering, waiting for someone though he does not know who. He is his sole society, and he would select a place were someone to look his way. His language is a prison house, and he is himself the cell he seeks to escape. Although Harp’s Creature is human, he hesitates over such a term as ‘human,’ with all its centuries of detritus, grips, and gripes. According to the traditional philosophy and theology in which Harp is schooled, a creature is anything that is not the Creator; thus, rocks, humans, and angels all are creatures. The Creature much prefers this much more general term, which emphasizes his solidarity with sidewalks, streets, and clouds. The Creature knows that there is meaning in the world, though nor for him, he fears—or rather, he resigns himself to meaning passing him by. If nothing else, he’ll watch as one might take in a parade. Neither alter-ego nor conventional character, Harp’s persona is a creature made out of words, a way of experimenting with various and shifting mental modes and language states. The Creature is a wayward thing who speaks and strolls and stands dumbfounded, sometimes, at what he overhears himself say.

Table of contents:
1 CREATURE’S SONG
Out of the Creature: Creature’s Song
The Creature Rediscovered
The Creature Makes up His Mind
The Creature in Retirement
The Creature’s Morning Prayer
The Creature Finds His Mark
Creature’s Morning Thoughts
Creature’s Digression
Creature’s Meditation
The Creature Contemplating
The Creature Praying
Creature’s Job Search
The Creature Wanes Philosophical
The Creature Considers Job
Creature’s New Job
The Creature Moving
The Creature Reading
The Creature on Retreat
Creature’s New Apartment
2 CHILDHOOD MEMORY
The Creature Remembers Childhood
Creature at Work
Creature on the Fourth of July 2
The Creature Protesting
Creature’s Nostalgia
The Creature Compares Being to a Brand New Suit
The Creature Connecting
Creature at Work 2
The Creature’s Sunday Afternoon
The Creature on Childhood
Creature on a Late-Night Walk
The Creature Parochial
The Creature on Retreat 2
Creature’s Day Off
The Creature Remembers
Creature’s Meditation 2
Creature Confronts the Deity
3 AUTUMNAL
Creature Autumnal
Everyday Creature
The Creature Undercover
Creature’s Morning Prayer 2
The Creature’s Christmas
Creature at the Garage
The Creature Remains Philosophical
Creature at the Nature Preserve
The Creature Recalls Summer Vacation
The Creature Considers Nature
Creature Abroad
The Creature Reading 2
The Creature’s Loneliness
Creature Considers Lamentations
Creature’s Nostalgia 2
The Creature’s Meditation 3
The Creature at Mass
4 CREATURE’S METAMORPHOSIS
The Creature’s Metamorphosis
The Creature on Mother’s Day
The Creature Quotidian
Creature Playing Basketball
The Creature in His Bath
The Creature Meteorological
The Creature Melancholy
The Creature Improvises
Creature in Communion
Creature Sleepless
Creature Retiring for the Night
The Creature in Compassion
The Creature on Vacation
The Creature Sacramental
The Creature Astronomical
The Creature Forgetful
The Creature in the Country
Creature’s Illness
Academic Creature
The Creature in New York
The Creature Reaches for a Self
The Creature Postmortem
Creature on a Date
Creature on the Town 2
The Creature’s Psalm

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Excerpt from book:  

The Creature on Vacation

Driving across the country, I stalled somewhere
Just outside my skin. I thought to extend
My senses into landscape, but my fingers,
Sprouting webs, went numb against the steering wheel.
The day became a funnel cloud

That forced me off the road.
Somewhere in Montana two women offered
To patch up my transmission.
I stalled trying to climb the word Montana.
The taller of the two let out a laugh

At my ineptitude in mapping out a course
That any child could follow with a compass
And directions from a cereal box.
She navigated her way under the hood
And had me on the road within an hour.

I didn’t look back until somewhere
In central Florida, coming to myself
With be-bop blasting from the radio.
Alligators at feeding time made
The waters roil and fish leap from the lake.

I let fly with an appetite to watch
Such raging spectacles until I fell so tired
I couldn’t drive anywhere anymore.
On the train a stranger said he’d never met
A man as much in touch as I, by which

He meant, I’m sure, he’d found the true primitive.
He touched my brow ridge, massaged my knuckles.
I recommended a good road movie
And steering clear of country houses.
Stay away from billboards and late-night
Infomercials offering the latest trip
Into a new dimension in or out of space.
Back home I sleep all day two days before
I’m back at work— such distances
I sleep from here to the bathroom door.