Syllabus of Errors: Poems
5/5
()
About this ebook
A new collection of poetry from the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award
. . . we are fixed to perpetrate the species—
I meant perpetuate—as if our duty
were coupled with our terror. As if beauty
itself were but a syllabus of errors.
Troy Jollimore's first collection of poems won the National Book Critics Circle Award, was hailed by the New York Times as "a snappy, entertaining book," and led the San Francisco Chronicle to call him "a new and exciting voice in American poetry." And his critically acclaimed second collection expanded his reputation for poems that often take a playful approach to philosophical issues. While the poems in Syllabus of Errors share recognizable concerns with those of Jollimore’s first two books, readers will also find a voice that has grown more urgent, more vulnerable, and more sensitive to both the inevitability of tragedy and the possibility of renewal.
Poems such as "Ache and Echo," "The Black-Capped Chickadees of Martha’s Vineyard," and "When You Lift the Avocado to Your Mouth" explore loss, regret, and the nature of beauty, while the culminating long poem, "Vertigo," is an elegy for a lost friend as well as a fantasia on death, repetition, and transcendence (not to mention the poet’s favorite Hitchcock film). Ingeniously organized into sections that act as reflections on six quotations about birdsong, these poems are themselves an answer to the question the poet asks in "On Birdsong": "What would we say to the cardinal or jay, / given wings that could mimic their velocities?"
Troy Jollimore
Troy Jollimore is the author of two previous collections of poetry, At Lake Scugog (Princeton) and Tom Thomson in Purgatory, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in the New Yorker, McSweeney's, the Believer, and other publications. He is a professor of philosophy at California State University, Chico.
Read more from Troy Jollimore
Love's Vision Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Syllabus of Errors
Titles in the series (26)
The Eternal City: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5At Lake Scugog: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Two Yvonnes: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCarnations: Poems Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Erosion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Glossary of Chickens: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Almanac: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5First Nights: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScaffolding: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ruined Elegance: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Syllabus of Errors: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Unstill Ones: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Before Our Eyes: New and Selected Poems, 1975–2017 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRain in Plural: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Radioactive Starlings: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe River Twice: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStet: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sadness and Happiness: Poems by Robert Pinsky Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flyover Country: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHosts and Guests: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Yellow Stars and Ice Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Explanation of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Before Recollection Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The New World: Infinitesimal Epics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Woman Under the Surface: Poems and Prose Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
Sheet Music Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRobinson's Crossing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unending Blues: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At Lake Scugog: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Chamber Music: The Poetry of Jan Zwicky Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwice Told Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Boy in the Labyrinth: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJump the Clock: New & Selected Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5From There: Some Thoughts on Poetry & Place Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLyric Poetry: The Pain and the Pleasure of Words Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Accidental: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Three Bell Zero Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAtopia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Before Our Eyes: New and Selected Poems, 1975–2017 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo Other Rome: poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Heiress/Ghost Acres Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter the Body: New & Selected Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnother Last Day: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fludde: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsN/O Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5July Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Pajamaist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Explanation of America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chick Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How a Poem Can Happen: Conversations With Twenty-One Extraordinary Poets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNeighbour Procedure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Current Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Danish Notebook Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Guard The Mysteries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things We Don't Talk About Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Poems of John Keats (with an Introduction by Robert Bridges) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Road Not Taken and other Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Enough Rope: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Collection of Poems by Robert Frost Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A Verse Narrative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Syllabus of Errors
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
Syllabus of Errors - Troy Jollimore
I ON BIRDSONG
If my readers wish to understand bird-music, they must assume that birds are not automatic musical boxes, but sound-lovers, who cultivate the pursuit of sound-combinations as an art, as truly as we have cultivated our arts of a similarly aesthetic character. This art becomes to many of them a real object of life, no less real than the pursuit of food or the maintenance of a family.
—WALTER GARSTANG, SONGS OF THE BIRDS (1922)
ON BIRDSONG
Poison, in proportion, is medicinal.
Medicine, ill-meted, can be terminal.
Brute noise, deftly repeated, becomes musical.
An exit viewed from elsewhere is an entrance.
The conjuror entrances a vast audience.
The hymn that’s resurrected from the hymnal
aspires, as we wish to, to the spiritual,
but is slow to disentangle from the sensual.
The evening light, refracted, terminates the day.
(A faction is a fraction of an integral.)
What would we say to the cardinal or jay,
given wings that could mimic their velocities?
How many wintery ferocities
are encompassed in their shrill inhuman canticles?
INVENTORY
Take inventory. Invent a story
about the people you have hurt.
Begin with yourself. The harm I’ve done
comes on this journey with me. He walks
ahead on the trail, or follows a dozen
paces behind. At night we stop
together. I try not to feel ashamed
of him, his decaying robes, his loathsome,
unwashed feet, so much like mine.
We don’t talk much. But two nights ago,
the campfire dying between us, I found
I could no longer stifle my rage, I wanted
to be rid of him so badly, and so
I mustered my anger and said, You only
get seven pairs of shoes to carry you
through this life, and you’ve already used up
four. Silence. The call of a whippoorwill
in the fields. At last he looked up.
That might be. But know that I’m willing to go
barefoot at the end, if that’s what it takes.
ACHE AND ECHO
1
Anything can be beautiful: a discarded
Taco Bell wrapper, an industrial park,
a strip mall, a bloodstain, a bruise, a corpse:
you just need to see it from the right angle,
in the right light, and in a spirit
of equanimity, open-mindedness,
and receptivity. Isn’t this
what twentieth-century artists were trying
to tell us? No, they were trying to tell us
that anything could be art. As for beauty,
they held it in contempt, they thought beauty
made us bad people, blind to the plight
of the poor, to the possibility of change.
That wasn’t their nuttiest notion, either.
Not by a longshot. But me, I can’t
give up my beauty, I’m an addict, a beauty
fiend; if you want to take it away
you’re going to have to pry it from my cold dead hands.
2
Give back the ache that echoed in
my heart. Return to me the ache
and the echo of the ache I felt
in Orchid Park. Send back to me
the loose-strung ache that echoed in
the ark that is my heart. Retrace
the arc a happy heart might make.
Sing back to me the song we sang
in the outer dark, the art we make
of the ache we felt when we traced the arc
of the last falling star to fall.
And stir me, stir me with the spoon
you used to hide the moon. Then stir
the echo of my ache. My melody
has fallen out of tune.
3
One: what pleases, what disgusts,
is only