Background
Lieberman, Laurence was born on February 16, 1935 in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Son of Nathan and Anita (Cohen) Lieberman.
( In his newest collection of poetry, Laurence Leiberman ...)
In his newest collection of poetry, Laurence Leiberman widens the scope of his previous Caribbean collections by drawing attention to the small enchanting islands of the Grenadines, a chain running between Grenada and St. Vincent. These outposts, often frequented by sailors, are mainly off the beaten tourist tracks. Lieberman's poems bring to life all the overlooked people, hidden places, and indigenous but rarely seen animals which can be found on these islands. These poems are as powerful as voodoo, full of energetic narratives in which Lieberman acts as observer while his characters—native "Caribs" and friends—guide us through the mystifying world of Guyana and the Caribbean: the planting of tree farms, local myths and religious sects, the daily crises of manual laborers working in the gold and diamond mines, and encounters with watras and harpy eagles. Lieberman's lines are rhythmic and strong; voices swirl in and out of his stanzas. From Lieberman's own precise observations to his inclusion of Caribbean dialects, the language created here is deeply textured and unique. The majority of these poems are narratives, stories about a culture that is extremely attuned to the richness of its past. They remind their readers that no matter how diverse a society becomes, it remains irrevocably connected to the land it was born of and the plants and animals that struggle to survive in its midst.
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( Inspired in part by a group of paintings from Caribbean...)
Inspired in part by a group of paintings from Caribbean masters Greaves, Akyem, and Ishi, this collection of poems finds resonance by relating to the 19th-century poetic tradition of “pictorialism” to create a vivid, enthusiastic energy. More than simply commenting on these paintings, however, these poems engage their subjects and creators to achieve something similar to the best art criticism, an exact and exhilarating encounter with the visual arts that produces a powerful beauty all its own. Included are 16 color plates of the paintings described in the collection.
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( When writing of Guyana or islands in the Dutch West Ind...)
When writing of Guyana or islands in the Dutch West Indies, Laurence Lieberman excavates, explores, even exhumes the essence of the place. In the flora and fauna, in the rural cafés and ruins of churches and crypts, in the taste of iguana soup and the look of light through stained glass, Lieberman unfolds an exquisite atlas of the senses. The awe of encounter, the raw impact, beauty, and sometimes the brutality of both the surroundings and the people fuel this poetry. Whether meeting an iguana hunter, a bricklayer, a witness to the United States–led Grenada invasion, or a classical composer, Lieberman gives the reader a vivid combination of his own wit and surprising observations mingled with the speech of each character.
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( With stunningly precise formal, biographical, and cultu...)
With stunningly precise formal, biographical, and cultural analysis, Laurence Lieberman turns his critical eye to American poets and confirms his prodigious talent not only as a narrative poet, but as a critic and essayist as well. What Lieberman aspires to do in Beyond the Muse of Memory, a collection of new and previously published essays, is to send the reader back to major poets for a fresh look and to neglected artists for close study. The phrase "Beyond the Muse of Memory" comes from the title essay on Robert Lowell and is significant to Lieberman because it reflects his belief that Lowell created "a whole new ars poetica in his last phase" by having written about and moved beyond his memories of the horrors in his own life. The phrase is also significant in that it best describes the author's own approach in this collection: in his words, these essays "make no pretense to an overview of contemporary American poetry, but rather highlight my own experience as a reader and interpreter. The essayists I most emulate are those whose writings tend to be personal and instinctively charged." Lieberman's new studies of Robert Lowell illuminate the poems of Lowell's final period, "a sector of his work that has been wrongly undervalued by many of his critics." Other essays that have never before appeared in book form on James Dickey, Robert Penn Warren, and Stephen Berg are gathered here with Lieberman's best and best-known earlier essays on W. S. Merwin, Mark Strand, Derek Walcott, James Wright, and William Stafford, to name a few. Beyond the Muse of Memory is a volume all serious students and readers of contemporary poetry will appreciate.
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(Laurence Lieberman writes poems that successfully utilize...)
Laurence Lieberman writes poems that successfully utilize techniques from every possible form of literature - including histories, travelogues, short stories, and epics. All the while, his lines maintain a deft balance of lyrical intensity, clear, methodical description, and the pure dialect of the characters living his poetry. In Dark Songs: Slave House and Synagogue, Lieberman creates a narrative mosaic of the eastern Caribbean islands, ranging from St. Eustatius in the eighteenth century to the island of Grenada after the United States-led invasion in 1983. When he writes of African slaves, British governors, Dutch Jews, island guerillas, fallen Swiss nobility, and piratelike charter captains, the wealth of his details, the force, and often the truth behind his stories allow us to witness the whole human saga of the Caribbean.
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( The Regatta in the Skies is a wonderful, complex collec...)
The Regatta in the Skies is a wonderful, complex collection of the best long poems from each phase of Laurence Lieberman's distinguished but still developing career, from his midwestern American childhood to his travels to the exotic landscapes of the underwater world, Japan, and the Caribbean. In a number of recent poems, Lieberman view islands of the West Indies through the eyes of intriguing local artists. Using cross-cultural relationships on individual and national levels to create a new kind of "poetry as witness," he weaves stories into the poems. No less engaging than his subjects are his cadences, ordered in intricately textured lines and original syllabic stanza patterns. "Orange County Plague: Scenes" focuses on the plight of the orange trees in southern California, blending motifs of politics, social history, civil rights of ethnic minorities, and the mythology surrounding them with descriptions of nature and landscape. This linked progression of seventeen poems, structured like a sonnet sequence, establishes the primacy of place in Lieberman's continuing canon. The longest poems deal with Jamaica, but others take as their settings a number of the smaller Caribbean islands, including Montserrat. In the poem "The Factories of Bay Leaf and Lime" Lieberman celebrates instinctive beauties of Montserrat's culture and workplace, and helps memorialize its national character at a time when the entire country is threatened with extinction by a volcano. The Regatta in the Skies is a bold and unforgettable collection from a poet at the top of his form.
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(First edition. Author's first book. Small ink inscription...)
First edition. Author's first book. Small ink inscription on the front free endpaper, otherwise fine in lightly creased, price-clipped dust jacket. vi, 89 pages. cloth, dust jacket.. 8vo..
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Lieberman, Laurence was born on February 16, 1935 in Detroit, Michigan, United States. Son of Nathan and Anita (Cohen) Lieberman.
Born February 16, 1935, in Detroit, Michigan, he studied at the University of Michigan, (Bachelor 1956, Master of Arts 1958) and did graduate study (1958-1960) at the University of California, Berkeley. Lieberman attended medical school before leaving to pursue his passion for poetry.
Professor English College Virgin Islands, 1964-1968. Professor English and creative writing University Illinois, Urbana, 1968—2007, professor emeritus English, since 2008. University Illinois Center for Advanced Study Creative Writing fellow, Japan, 1971-1972.
( The Regatta in the Skies is a wonderful, complex collec...)
( Inspired in part by a group of paintings from Caribbean...)
( With stunningly precise formal, biographical, and cultu...)
( In his newest collection of poetry, Laurence Leiberman ...)
(Laurence Lieberman writes poems that successfully utilize...)
( When writing of Guyana or islands in the Dutch West Ind...)
( When writing of Guyana or islands in the Dutch West Ind...)
(First edition, uncorrected proof. Fine. xii , 122 pages. ...)
(One of 200 numbered copies. Illustrations by Laurence Don...)
(First edition. Author's first book. Small ink inscription...)
(First Edition)
Married Bernice Clair Braun, June 17, 1956. Children— Carla, Deborah, Isaac.