Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Beast
    Beast
    Beast
    Ebook43 pages28 minutes

    Beast

    By Charles Kraszewski

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Reviewing Charles S. Kraszewski's verse cycle Beast in Odra, Mieczyslaw Orski speaks of the cycle's "majesty, coupled with its large dose of refreshing irony and humor" such as one finds in the "grand narratives of the poetic art." He compares Kraszewski's poetic voice with that of John Ashberry. Readers of modern American poetry may find more similarities with the Jack Kerouac of the Duluoz Legend. Not solely because Kraszewski's Beast explores the familar, yet suddenly vanished culture of the ethnic enclaves of the 1960s Northeast, but also because of the haunting, incantatory rhythms of poems such as "Loveland Pass" and "Here is no god but Mammon," so redolent of the Book of Sketches and Big Sur at their hypnotic best. Charles S. Kraszewski is 2013 laureate of the Union of Polish Writers Abroad (London).

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCharles Kraszewski
    Release dateSep 20, 2014
    ISBN9781310618444
    Beast
    Author

    Charles Kraszewski

    Poet, translator, literary critic.

    Related to Beast

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: March 2021

      Mar 4, 2021

      Our own Nick Ripatrazone takes a look at six new poetry titles from the likes of Adrienne Su, Dennis James Sweeney, and Karen Fish. The post Must-Read Poetry: March 2021 appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Maxim Osipov

      Mar 9, 2021

      Vnukovo is the smallest, most intimate of Moscow’s airports, and when your flight arrives—especially if it arrives on Saturday at eleven at night—you don’t expect to see much of a crowd. Stamps in the passport, baggage claim—quick and easy. “Where ar

      14 min read

    • Article

      Nick Laird

      Dec 15, 2017

      I was trying to write like an adult.I had children.I was at the end of something. As I waited at my table by the window for the coffee,I saw that the sirocco had depositeda scrim of dust on the sill overnight,and it was the dark red of powdered blood

      3 min read

    • Article

      Home Farm

      Aug 24, 2020

      Arriving on my grandparents’ farm for our annual three-week winter holiday was always an occasion. As was usual, my grandmother waited for us on the big red wraparound stoep. How long she had been hovering in the vicinity of the front door we never k

      2 min read

    • Article

      Stop Hating on Adjectives!

      Jun 12, 2019

      A common admonition in creative writing pedagogy is, “Cut as many adjectives as possible.” I propose that this rule springs from mere prejudice. The post Stop Hating on Adjectives! appeared first on The Millions.

      7 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Joseph Brodsky

      May 12, 2020

      Two Poems by Joseph Brodsky
      7 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Feb 28, 2023

      Dear C, At first Virgil’s poem is quite dull; equivocalnames of products at The Container Store: Elfa White Medium Drawer, Mesh NarrowRolling Cart (Medium Solution), Narrow Classic Mesh Box and the number of pirouetting starseach product attained. An

      5 min read

    • Article

      Six Sonnets

      Jan 1, 2021

      Goldenrod, I could say, you know, everybody wants somethingfrom me, but, well, everybody wants something and nobody wantsnothing from me, goldenrod, towhead, beast. Goldenrod, you packthe meadows like gold-plated sardines. I have heart palpitationsbu

      3 min read

    • Article

      Flood The World With Beauty

      Nov 1, 2019

      A big literary conference is probably not the best place for a poet dealing with a mental breakdown. But there I was at AWP, skittishly perusing tables at the book fair, under the garish lights of the Minneapolis Convention Center. For two years, par

      8 min read

    • Article

      Come Stay

      Jan 16, 2024

      Come Stay
      23 min read

    • Article

      Holiday For One

      Mar 24, 2023

      Holiday For One
      4 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      In a hotel in a small town in Norfolk I am listening to someonethrowing glass bottles into a metal bin: toss-shatter, toss-shatter.There are no other sounds; it’s a quiet afternoonbut the one tossing them has a sense of rhythm and I havea sense that

      5 min read

    • Article

      What Ray Charles Says

      Mar 1, 2024

      The nighttime is the right time to be with the one you love, says Ray,but according to Hamlet, it’s when “churchyards yawn and hell itselfbreathes out contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood,”says Hamlet, “and do such bitter business as

      2 min read

    • Article

      Under The Skeleton Tree

      Sep 24, 2019

      Under The Skeleton Tree
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Periodic Stranger: When exile becomes home.

      Dec 12, 2013

      My roots are in a hilltop village west of Matera, where rabbit and boar run riot in the fields. Figs, apricots, and pears hang in heavy clusters, at eye-level and within easy reach. There, the local girls are famous for their calves, made firm and st

      21 min read

    • Article

      The Periodic Stranger

      Mar 2, 2017

      My roots are in a hilltop village west of Matera, where rabbit and boar run riot in the fields. Figs, apricots, and pears hang in heavy clusters, at eye-level and within easy reach. There, the local girls are famous for their calves, made firm and st

      21 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      I met the Bishop on the roadand much said he—same old porridgeI heard as a child, my little bodya “foul sty.” “Love has pitched his mansion.” MaybeLove pitched her silken tent.Love has raised its dwelling inthe place of reproduction, which can be fit

      3 min read

    • Article

      Second Language

      Aug 14, 2017

      Second Language
      9 min read

    • Article

      HERNAN BAS New and Recent Work

      Dec 15, 2018

      HERNAN BAS New and Recent Work
      6 min read

    • Article

      Sifting And Sorting With Joy

      Jul 20, 2020

      Friend Jan phones to ask if I’d like to buy his grandmother’s old pump organ. He is scaling down big time, he explains, moving house one last time. Actually, he corrects himself, it’s the penultimate move, the last one being the ABF (absolute bloody

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Beast

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Beast - Charles Kraszewski

      Charles S. Kraszewski

      Beast

      Copyright © 2014, Charles S. Kraszewski

      Smashwords Edition

      Originally published as a print book in 2013 by

      Plan B Press

      P.O. Box 4067, Alexandria, VA 22303

      All rights reserved

      Cover designed by Stefan Tejk.

      Beast

      Charles S. Kraszewski

      Qui genus iactat suum aliena laudat.

      Por eso aun estoy en el lugar de siempre

      En la misma ciudad y con la misma gente

      Contents

      i. Pennsylvania

      ii. Leonora

      iii. She Never Read Seneca...

      iv. The Border Ran Here

      v. Fall the First

      vi. ...and You’d Think That I Never Had Either

      vii. And When a Train Goes By It’s Such a Sad Sound

      viii. The Name Thomas is Too Good For Me

      ix. Fall the Second

      x. Interlude: Hidden in Baskets

      xi. Turns Out He Wasn’t Quetzalcoatl After All

      xii. We Fill Up the Ruptured Causeways with Debris

      xiii. But It Stood Still For Joshua, And Backwards Ran For Old Hezekiah

      xiv. For Today’s Text, We Take Psalm 8:4 (Fall the Penultimate)

      xv. While in Disbelief They Chanted Hol-ly-wood! Hol-ly-wood!

      xvi. Our Minds May Have Been Sleeping, but Our Hearts Weren’t

      xvii. Here is no god but Mammon and Damnéd is his Profit (All Fall Down)

      xviii. Loveland Pass

      i. Pennsylvania

      The hills are all culm banks.

      Stripling birches pierce the flaky black crust

      with roots thin and sharp

      as the fingers of pallid, tubercular women

      poking holes for seeds that will never germinate.

      Even the poor children neglect the collieries.

      They stand before the crusty windows

      and the stones fall from their dirty hands

      in utter apathy.

      A ragged, gray feral cat darts its tick-tormented head

      above the rim of a treadless tire

      lying exhausted among deer pellets and tiny fossilized ferns.

      ii. Leonora

      The summer sky was yellow

      when Black Lung finally manned up

      and stood before my Grandfather in the garden.

      Ahem, look here, Kazimierz… Sir,

      (rubbing the furry leaves of the tomato plants

      that smelled like green shoe polish

      between greasy finger and fat thumb),

      "It’s like this: six months. Maybe more,

      maybe less."

      Dziadek just stood there, coughing, staring, absent.

      Well then, Black Lung fidgeted,

      kicking the dry gray clods

      as crumbly as worm shit,

      "I’ll be off now. See

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1