The Cineaste: Poems

The Cineaste: Poems

<p><strong>“Finds evocative new ways to connect us to a shared storytelling heritage.”―<em>Entertainment Weekly</em></strong></p> A. Van Jordan, an acclaimed American poet and the author of three previous volumes, “demonstrates poetry’s power to be at once intimate and wide-ranging” (Robert Pinsky, <em>Washington Post Book World</em>). In this penetrating new work he takes us with him to the movies, where history reverberates and characters are larger than life. <em>The Cineaste</em> is an entrancing montage of poems, wherein film serves as the setting for contemplative trances, memoir, and pure fantasy. At its center is a sonnet sequence that imagines the struggle of pioneer filmmaker Oscar Micheaux against D. W. Griffith’s <em>The Birth of a Nation</em>, which Micheaux saw not only as racist but also as the start of a powerful new art form. “Sharpen the focus in your lens, and you / Sharpen your view of the world; you can see / How people inhabit space in their lives, / How the skin of Negroes and whites both play / With light.” Scenes and characters from films such as <em>Metropolis</em>, <em>Stranger than Paradise</em>, <em>Last Year at Marienbad</em>, <em>The Red Shoes</em>, and <em>The Great Train Robbery</em> also come to luminous life in this vibrant new collection. <em>The Cineaste</em> is an extended riff on Jordan’s life as a moviegoer and a brilliant exploration of film, poetry, race, and the elusiveness of reverie. <p><em>from “Last Year at Marienbad”</em><br /><br /><em>A place, though visible, is like a ghost</em><br /><em>of memories. Even memories one forgets</em><br /><em>linger in the space in which they occurred.</em><br /><em>Here within the expanse of vaulted ceilings,</em><br /><br /><em>doorways leading to more doors, hallways</em><br /><em>leading to more halls, the faintest recollections</em><br /><em>absorb over time; no act will wholly evanesce.</em></p>