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After the Digging

After the Digging provides an exceptional look at the early work of acclaimed poet Alan Shapiro. His first collection of poems allows readers to realize his strong sense of historical narrative and gives them reference on how to read his later poems. Inspired by his time at Stanford in the late seventies, the book is divided into two parts: the first is a sequence on the Irish Famine in the mid-nineteenth century; the second, a series on demonic possession in late seventeenth-century New England. These poems give voice to the pain and delusion of those from other periods and inevitably recall the many evils of our own century.

"Powerful. . . . That a young poet can handle this subject so well in a first book is . . . a pleasure in itself."—Robert von Hallberg, Contemporary Literature, 1981

46 pages | 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 | © 1998

Poetry

Table of Contents

I. After the Digging
Randolf Routh to Charles Trevelyan
Memorandum
The Dublin Evening Mail
Captain Wynne to Randolf Routh
The Last Guest
Passage Out
II. Captives
Hands of Compassionate Women
Night Seasons
Phantom Game
Ploughing
A Little Dust
Afterword

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