鈥淎h, writ happens.鈥 Like the con men who rely on thieves' Latin to ply their trade, the poems in Peter Jay Shippy's award-winning collection don't play well with other poems. They are difficult. They rave. They are unsettling and blunt. They crash cars and ride tsunamis and hitch rides on tugs. They also provide a contemporary, ironic, and tender view of America, all the while layering wordplay, cleverness, and sentiment.
鈥Thieves鈥 Latin is a delightful introduction to a poet whose wit and wordplay counterpoint a fierce poetic inquiry.鈥濃The Antioch Review
鈥淲hat binds the marvelous to the mundane is the constant arc of mind. In Thieves' Latin, Peter Jay Shippy articulates that mind, catching its accents in acts of nature, of culture, and of the Divine. Here I sense a bright, bright motion, and it is thrilling.鈥 鈥擠onald Revell, author of Arcady
鈥 鈥楴othing / can replace the intimacy between / an object and its human,' says Peter Jay Shippy. The intimacy of all these poems fills in the gaps between language-objects and reader-subjects. Shippy's strange little machines of words are all kinetic, disturbing, and weirdly graceful, unlike anything else available in American poetry. A dazzling book.鈥 鈥 Bin Ramke, author of Airs, Waters, Places
鈥淚n Peter Jay Shippy's debut collection, the function of image proliferates. Reading, I'm reminded of Andy Warhol's comment in his journal: 'The snow looks very beautiful, real even.' Everywhere in Thieves鈥 Latin the natural is enhanced or destroyed by the human imagination. Shippy has written a surrealist elegy for the earth, 'whistling hardcore gabba and / breakbeat techno versions of 鈥淭he Internationale.鈥 鈥 A fierce accomplishment.鈥 鈥 Claudia Keelan, author of Utopic
Winner 2002 澳洲幸运10开奖 Poetry Prize
