Orpheum, Poems by Reed Wilson

The elegant poems of this collection embrace a whole journey into knowingness.

Sample Poems by Reed Wilson

"Reed Wilson's Orpheum is first of all one of the many mid-twentieth century American movie theaters that take their name from the legendary Greek lyricist who lost his beloved Eurydice to Hades, not once but twice, and sang of his grief so movingly that he enchanted the beasts of the forest. Characteristically disappointed as a teenager by the conclusion of Cocteau's great film La Belle et la Bete, Wilson is too honest as a man to settle for happy endings that are voulu. The heart-breaking occasions-the stoning by cruel boys of a bird with a broken wing, the dreams of a family homestead slowly eroded over generations, the loss to drug addiction of a son-yield poems that testify to extraordinary spiritual endurance reminiscent of Beckett's existentialists. Plain-spoken, hard-earned, clear-eyed, inspiring, this is a book by a survivor for survivors."-Stephen Yenser

"Variations of the Orpehus myth, its permutations and mutations, structure this collection by Reed Wilson. Since the reader is invited to look back and be doomed by that almost involuntary act (not to look would be to deny self-knowledge) the poems proclaim inevitable fall as a necessity of being alive and of being as necessarily truly, madly, deeply, responsive to life's trials. Orpheum is a handbook for us to be a little prepared, in some state of readiness, for the burn of life that precedes its balm."-Fred D'Aguiar

Reed Wilson's poems have appeared in a number of journals, and he has reviewed books for Poetry International, The Chattahoochee Review, and The Summerset Review. He lives in Los Angeles, and teaches at UCLA.

ISBN: 978-1625493392, 120 pages

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