The Motel En Route to Life Out There

Synopsis

This book is set in landscapes and dramatic situations that reflect the state of the spirit. It argues the necessity of emptying, of going backward before attempting to move forward, of facing the vacancy, emptiness, inertia. Waste Spaces conflates The Waste Books and The Waste Land and Theodore Roethke’s line “The waste spaces behind the eye."

Praise for this Book

‘The Millennium Hotel enlarges upon the themes that appeared in Rider and includes several of the same players and personae. The books build upon each other to create an increasingly rich linguistic world. Rudman is writing a sophisticated poetry of polyphonic voices. He engages the questions of the subject position and the construction of the self obliquely, in poems that ‘think on their feet.’’ —Alice Fulton

‘We could say of Mark Rudman what he says of D. H. Lawrence: ‘He isn’t so much part of the present as he is of the instantaneous.” Urgent, quicksilver, unpredictable, Rudman’s essays pay homage to his masters Lawrence, Williams, Lowry, and move, as they move, in swoops, feints, and lunges toward revelation.’ —Rosanna Warren

Reviews of this Book

‘Here, happily, is the public poetry of a private person’ —Roger Mitchell, The American Book Review

‘A sentient self emerges clearly in Mark Rudman’s work – complex, despairing, seeking to confront the contradictions offered up by contemporary urban life’ —Leslie Ullman , New York Times Book Review

‘In The Couple, Mark Rudman has woven an extraordinarily rich and highly original tapestry. It’s an impressive achievement.’ —Harold Pinter