Revenants

Poetry by Mark Nowak

October 1, 2000 • 5.5 x 8.5 • 160 pages • 978-1-56689-107-3

Poems that celebrate Polish folklore and explore the Polish American experience, finding collective truths in the particularity of a unique subculture.

This first book-length collection of poetry by the editor of the journal XCP: Cross-Cultural Poetics explores the Polish American neighborhoods in and around Buffalo, New York, finding collective truths in the particularity of a unique culture.

About the Author

Mark Nowak, a 2010 Guggenheim fellow, is the author of Coal Mountain Elementary (Coffee House Press, 2009) and Shut Up Shut Down (Coffee House Press, 2004), a New York Times Editor’s Choice. A native of Buffalo, he currently directs the Worker Writers School.

Reviews

 

“Mark Nowak encounters the whispers of creation and cultural remembrance in his eminent, visionary poetry. Revenants is an original return to a splendid ethos of ancestral word patterns, and the images bear the solemn pleasures of time, place, and singular landscapes.” —Gerald Vizenor

“One of the most original collections of poetry I’ve read in years. In it, the curling smoke of myth mixes with the smoke from cooking sausages, and heavy steps of history are crisscrossed by the indelible birdtracks of particular places, recorded by the poet in his fieldnotes.” —Forrest Gander

“Revenants is a meta-ethnography, a palpable social and psychic cosmos made visible by fiery dislocations and upturned names. I have seen few manifestos as incandescent as this one.” —Juan Felipe Herrara