Modern History
by Christopher Buckley
$19.95
“ …humor is a constant tug on the harness of nostalgia. Buckley’s ongoing wonder at the miracle of what happens in the world and how experience lodges under the skin, serves as a way home and a way forward.”— Killarney Clary
Format: paperback
“ …humor is a constant tug on the harness of nostalgia. Buckley’s ongoing wonder at the miracle of what happens in the world and how experience lodges under the skin, serves as a way home and a way forward.”
— Killarney Clary
Christopher Buckley has been for 20 years one of our pioneers of the prose poem…”
—Brian Clements, editor of Sentence: A Journal of Prose
“These ruminations on time, morality and the meaning of life showcase Christopher Buckley’s enthusiasms and verbal gusto… As a whole, the book adds up to spending time with a witty, knowledgeable, wise companion whose mind and exclamations never fail to intrigue.”
— Morton Marcus
“ …humor is a constant tug on the harness of nostalgia. Buckley’s ongoing wonder at the miracle of what happens in the world and how experience lodges under the skin, serves as a way home and a way forward.”
— Killarney Clary
Christopher Buckley has been for 20 years one of our pioneers of the prose poem…”
—Brian Clements, editor of Sentence: A Journal of Prose
“These ruminations on time, morality and the meaning of life showcase Christopher Buckley’s enthusiasms and verbal gusto… As a whole, the book adds up to spending time with a witty, knowledgeable, wise companion whose mind and exclamations never fail to intrigue.”
— Morton Marcus
A child of California, Christopher Buckley grew up in the seenic hills, beaches and woods around Santa Barbara/Montecito in the 1950s and 60s. He received his BA from St. Mary’s College of California, an M.A. in English/Creative Writing from San Diego State University, and an MFA in poetry at University of California Irvine. He has taught writing and creative writing at California State University Fresno, University of California Santa Barbara, West Chester State University in Pennsylvania, and for the last eleven years has taught in the creative writing department at the University of California Riverside. Modern History is his 16th book of poems.
Additional information
| Weight | .4 lbs |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 6 × .5 × 9 in |
excerpt from “Time Change”
Waking in the dark, daylight-savings gone, I’m remembering the Biltmore, killing the afternoon at the MLA in ’81, the hopeful with their haircuts upstairs being grilled like fish. I knew better than hope. I’m remembering that dark bar Larry and I had all to ourselves, and a hard, green chablis from a jug at $3.19 a glass which unscrambled my nerves enough so I could ask about his work. And yes, I said “work,” trying to sound as if I’d packed some scholarly resources in the inner pocket of my sport coat, trying to sound objective, although I had committed at least a hundred lines to heart. He looked up to the one blade of afternoon light slicing through a transom and said what he was trying to do was stop time, casually, the way he’d say “Fresno” when asked where he was from…and that, to me, rang as true as a tree, or a shoe, made sense as clearly as a star burning through to this one blue dot in the outer precincts of the Milky Way.
