The Kitchen Sink; New and Selected Poems, 1972-2007

St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 2007. First Graywolf Printing, 2007. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. Michael Pointer (Author photograph). xx, 345, [3] pages. Coda. Autographed sticker on front of DJ. Signed by the author on the title page. Minor bottom edge soiling. Minor DJ wear. Minor corner bumping. Albert Goldbarth has created an unmistakable signature style, learned, copious, hilarious, and heartbreaking, which has so far spanned an award-winning career of thirty-five years. The Kitchen Sink brings together forty new poems with a rich selection of earlier poetry, ranging from the brief, flickering lyric to the long, narrative sequence. Goldbarth exerts a wild showmanship and an ever-widening scope to illustrate the complex character and interconnectedness of humanity, history, and art. The Kitchen Sink is the definitive book by one of America's most original and entertaining poets. Albert Goldbarth (born January 31, 1948) is an American poet. He has won the National Book Critics Circle award for "Saving Lives" and "Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology", the only poet to receive the honor two times. He also won the Mark Twain Award for Humorous Poetry in 2008. The poetry of Albert Goldbarth is widely praised, and he has published extensively, with more than 30 collections to his credit, including poetry and essays. Goldbarth was awarded The Chad Walsh Poetry Prize by the Beloit Poetry Journal in 1994. Goldbarth received his BA from the University of Illinois in 1969 and his MFA from the University of Iowa in 1971. From 1987 to 2018, he served as the Adelle V. Davis Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Wichita State University, which houses the Goldbarth Archive in Ablah Library. "Albert Goldbarth is . . . a contemporary genius with the language itself . . . There is simply no contemporary poet like him." --David Baker, The Kenyon Review. In his review of Kitchen Sink, David Baker of The Kenyon Review says: "Albert Goldbarth is ... a contemporary genius with the language itself ... There is simply no contemporary poet like him." Albert Goldbarth has been wrestling with the poetic form and popular culture since the early 1970's. He has earned the reputation of being one of the most important poets of his generation. Amazingly enough, Goldbarth has found a way not only to write penetrating and complex poems but also to be prolific in his output. Since the early 1970's, he has averaged almost one collection a year. This certainly is a rare achievement. Goldbarth always has upheld a high standard. Humor, family, popular culture, and civilization have been but a few of the many topics that Goldbarth has successfully juggled. He likes to take the long view, to observe the present by investigating the past and finding connections. It is always an adventure for both the poet and the reader. A lesson must be learned, or the mistakes of the past will be repeated again and again. The wisdom imparted is never heavy-handed, though. Goldbarth believes that playfulness is a strength of poetry, not a weakness. The poet is absorbed with the architecture of a poem and the many cultures described. Born in Chicago, Goldbarth learned to appreciate the rhythm of the urban landscape. It is always difficult for a poet to select poems for any collection. For Goldbarth, his publisher generously allowed him 350 pages for The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems, 1972-2007, and the poet wondered whether he would be able to fill the book. Soon enough, however, Goldbarth realized that he had more than enough poems. First of all, it was decided that there needed to be a "substantial section of ‘new' poems." With this in mind, the number of representative poems from the earlier collections had to be trimmed. Not wanting to "excerpt" long poems, a number of poems had to be instantly set aside. The inclusion of long poems would obviously mean that fewer poems could be included, and excerpts rarely do justice to the whole, so it is no surprise that Goldbarth and his publisher would agree that very long poems had no place in The Kitchen Sink. He also wanted the "selected" poems to have been published in his previous collections, not merely in journals. For the most part, poems that Goldbarth has published since 1983 have received the largest representation. The "Albert Goldbarth" who existed before 1983 was "seminally important" but receives "little representation" in this collection. The "Prefatory Note" is divided into "What's Not Here," and "What's Here.".