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J. D. McClatchy is the author of three earlier books of poems: Scenes from Another Life (1981), Stars Principal (1986), and The Rest of the Way (1990). His literary essays are collected in White Paper (1989) and Twenty Questions (1998). He has edited a number of books, including The Vintage Book of Contemporary Poetry (1996). He has written four opera libretti, most recently Emmeline for Tobias Picker, commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera. He is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and since 1991 has been editor of The Yale Review.
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Ten Commandments is a book-length sequence of poems that plot the rules we were raised on, rules we forget but can't evade. Here is the whole underworld of desire, its tasks and perversions. Here are the iron laws and the way the heart is shaped by them, even as it prefers betrayal, adultery, murder, or greed. J. D. McClatchy draws on intimate authobiographical details, and on a range of historical incidents that includes an eerie account of Proust in a brothel and a chilling glimpse of Eichmann in Argentina. Sideshow freaks, snipers in Vietnam, Auden's dictionary, whirling dervishes, motel and mammogram, slave and saint--this book is a cabinet of moral curiosities, a collage of emotional astonishments.
When McClatchy's previous book, The Rest of the Way, was published in 1990, he was given an Award in Literature by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, whose citation concluded, "it may be that no more eloquent poet will emerge in his American generation."
With Ten Commandments, there can be no question of his mastery. Here is that rare eloquence indeed, charged with passion and raised to a remarkable new power.
"To take the Decalogue seriously is to take it personally, and in this marvelous, brilliant, exciting book of poems--though not always
spoken in the first person--this is darinly what J. D. McClatchy does. Fierce, unflinching truths and unadorned facts--whether in easy
colloquial speech or epigrammatic polish, whether in covert homage to Auden, Empson or Cavafy--become startling allegories of all our
lives, revelations made possible by courage, irony and a masterly versatility. This is a superb collection of poems" --Anthony Hecht
"The gifts that are so evident and telling in these poems will not surprise those of us who have followed the extending range, depth, and
daring of subject and form in J. D. McClatchy's work over the past two decades. The complexities and lucid articulation of feeling, the
intent awareness, the informed play of language have distinguished each of his books, and the assurance and directness of Ten
Commandments move to new ground with authority. These poems are a mature disclosure of a particular life in our age, glimpsed,
projected, refracted, recognized 'as if at last defined,' in speech that proves to be a celebration." --W. S. Merwin
"J. D. McClatchy's new book is a work of brilliance, clarity, and song. In it soblique and provocative contemplations of Moses' great
supposes, it is gorgeous and witty; here heaven meets earth and is smitten. Ten Commandments comprises the most stunning poems yet
from one of our great poets." --Lorrie Moore
"Ten Commandments is ... a reputation-makign wonder that isn't just the year's best book of poems but may also turn out to be the
year's best book. Poised, architectural and built to last in the effortlessly disciplined tradition of W. H. Auden and Robert Lowell, the
poems also have a sharp confessional kick worthy of Anne Sexton at her most bruising." --Time
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