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3.0 

Double Shadow

By Carl Phillips
Double Shadow by Carl Phillips digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

A stunning new collection of poems from the author of Speak Low

Comparing any human life to "a restless choir" of impulses variously in conflict and at peace with one another, Carl Phillips, in his eleventh book, examines the double shadow that a life casts forth: "now risk, and now / faintheartedness." In poems that both embody and inhabit this double shadow, risk and faintheartedness prove to have the power equally to rescue us from ourselves and to destroy us. Spare, haunted, and haunting, yet not without hope, Double Shadow argues for life as a wilderness through which there's only the questing forward—with no regrets and no looking back.

Double Shadow is a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award for Poetry
Winner of the 2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry

A Boston Globe Best Poetry Book of 2011

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7 Reviews

3.0
“It's my first time to read Carl Phillips' work and it saddens me to admit that I didn’t like this collection. I even read it twice to make sure about my overall impression. The premise sounded great – delving into the contrasts of humanity – but the execution didn’t land, well at least for me. While I found several lines here beautifully profound, most of the poems just didn’t move me. Some were forgettable. I’m still open to reading his other works, though. Sadly, this one was a miss.”
“I have to admit, I have a love-hate relationship with Carl Phillips’ poetry. I already have read four of his collection namely: Tether, Speak Low, Double Shadow and Riding Westward. I adored Speak Low and Double Shadow, however Tether and Riding Westward didn’t connect to me the way poetry should. Half of the time I have no idea what he was talking about, sometimes it felt like they are all just words all jumbled into one poem, but there are also times that his poetry leaves me in awe – just like his poems here in this collection. Double Shadow is lyrical and haunting. It is about life’s contrasts, of how two shadows are cast from one origin. Here is a favorite poem from this collection: Clear, Cloudless Tonight – in the foundering night, at least, of imagination, where what I don’t in fact believe anymore, all the same, is true – the stars look steadily down upon me. I look ip, at the stars. Life as a recklessly fed bonfire growing unexpectedly more reckless seems neither the best or worst of several choices within reach, still. I wear on my head a crown of feathers – among which, sure, I have had my favorites. Fear, though, is the bluest feather, and it is easily the bluest feather that the wind loves most.”

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