Phoenix Poets
3 total works
One of our most gifted poets, Sleigh reveals with vigor and delicacy the connections forged between the dead and the living. Waking is a moving narrative of the creation of the self.
". . . . it takes a book like Tom Sleigh's Waking to remind us of...Read more
". . . . it takes a book like Tom Sleigh's Waking to remind us of...Read more
One of our most gifted poets, Sleigh reveals with vigor and delicacy the connections forged between the dead and the living. Waking is a moving narrative of the creation of the self.
". . . . it takes a book like Tom Sleigh's Waking to remind us of all that was most innately stirring and necessary about the confessional insurrection. . . . in Waking Sleigh proves himself worthy of spinning gold thread from the straw of sincerity, elevating his so-called confessions from the merely revealing to the durably revelatory."—David Barber, Poetry
"[Sleigh] is a consummate stylist whose formal control and exploitation of convention is graceful and calm. And yet it is from the calm and steady control that some of Sleigh's most emotionally powerful moments are acheived. . . .Waking is one of the strongest collections of poems to appear in the last few years."—Michael Collier, Partisan Review
"Tom Sleigh's second book of poems, Waking is so fine one can hardly do justice to it in a review. The second poem, 'Ending,' is a remarkable piece of work which introduces the notion of the 'hook'—which hooks us to life even while it kills us. It is a presence of painful mortality which haunts the rest of the book."—Liz Rosenberg, New York Times Book Review
"Waking handsomely and affirmatively demonstrates its own clean and demanding premise: one's imagination is awakened to life by the burden of mortality. One reads in these poems a view not of the poet's suffering, but of our own temporal joys and sorrows."—Jay Meek, Hungry Mind Review
"With the publication of Waking, his second collection of poems, Tom Sleigh establishes his voice among the strongest of his generation. A poet of subject and craft, his skill allows him to avoid the slackness of much free verse and, at the same time, break free of the stiff old numbers in order to create a spoken language of rhythmic intensity and eloquence. . . . In this book Tom Sleigh's vigilance provides his readers with an invaluable gift: we can wake our lives."—Stuart Dischell, Boston Review
". . . . it takes a book like Tom Sleigh's Waking to remind us of all that was most innately stirring and necessary about the confessional insurrection. . . . in Waking Sleigh proves himself worthy of spinning gold thread from the straw of sincerity, elevating his so-called confessions from the merely revealing to the durably revelatory."—David Barber, Poetry
"[Sleigh] is a consummate stylist whose formal control and exploitation of convention is graceful and calm. And yet it is from the calm and steady control that some of Sleigh's most emotionally powerful moments are acheived. . . .Waking is one of the strongest collections of poems to appear in the last few years."—Michael Collier, Partisan Review
"Tom Sleigh's second book of poems, Waking is so fine one can hardly do justice to it in a review. The second poem, 'Ending,' is a remarkable piece of work which introduces the notion of the 'hook'—which hooks us to life even while it kills us. It is a presence of painful mortality which haunts the rest of the book."—Liz Rosenberg, New York Times Book Review
"Waking handsomely and affirmatively demonstrates its own clean and demanding premise: one's imagination is awakened to life by the burden of mortality. One reads in these poems a view not of the poet's suffering, but of our own temporal joys and sorrows."—Jay Meek, Hungry Mind Review
"With the publication of Waking, his second collection of poems, Tom Sleigh establishes his voice among the strongest of his generation. A poet of subject and craft, his skill allows him to avoid the slackness of much free verse and, at the same time, break free of the stiff old numbers in order to create a spoken language of rhythmic intensity and eloquence. . . . In this book Tom Sleigh's vigilance provides his readers with an invaluable gift: we can wake our lives."—Stuart Dischell, Boston Review
In "The Chain", Sleigh explores the nature of memory - its ability to recast events in contradictory ways as it links individual lives to history. The poet reveals the ways in which the individual consciousness, alternately resisting and embracing its ancestral legacy, seeks to transform, in order to comprehend,...Read more
In "The Chain", Sleigh explores the nature of memory - its ability to recast events in contradictory ways as it links individual lives to history. The poet reveals the ways in which the individual consciousness, alternately resisting and embracing its ancestral legacy, seeks to transform, in order to comprehend, the meaning of cultural inheritance. In a series of elegies, portraits, and love poems, he dramatizes the ambiguous nature of truth and the difficulties the moral imagination must overcome in recalling, understanding, and judging the past.
In The Dreamhouse, Tom Sleigh's poetry is a medium for both revelation and linguistic invention. The meditative clarity of Sleigh's poems, his ability to range between the plain and high style with complete naturalness of intonation, and the varying and always surprising musical effects he accomplishes in each poem...Read more
In The Dreamhouse, Tom Sleigh's poetry is a medium for both revelation and linguistic invention. The meditative clarity of Sleigh's poems, his ability to range between the plain and high style with complete naturalness of intonation, and the varying and always surprising musical effects he accomplishes in each poem display his unequaled flair for innovation that is never willful or forced but which always works to forward the poems' emotional and intellectual resonances. The Dreamhouse marks Sleigh as one of the most inventive and provocative poets of his generation.
Praise for Tom Sleigh:
"Through sheer artistry, Tom Sleigh manages to write . . . in a transcendent way, and without appeal to the metaphysical assumptions transcendence usually requires. The Chain . . . floods darkness with brilliant craft."—Gray Jacobik, Boston Globe
"Tom Sleigh's second book of poems, Waking, is so fine one can hardly do justice to it in a review. . . . Sleigh is nearly as prodigal with his gifts as Yeats."—Liz Rosenberg, New York Times Book Review
Praise for Tom Sleigh:
"Through sheer artistry, Tom Sleigh manages to write . . . in a transcendent way, and without appeal to the metaphysical assumptions transcendence usually requires. The Chain . . . floods darkness with brilliant craft."—Gray Jacobik, Boston Globe
"Tom Sleigh's second book of poems, Waking, is so fine one can hardly do justice to it in a review. . . . Sleigh is nearly as prodigal with his gifts as Yeats."—Liz Rosenberg, New York Times Book Review