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Yeshiva Boys: Poems
Yeshiva Boys: Poems
Yeshiva Boys: Poems
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Yeshiva Boys: Poems

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David Lehman, a poet of wit, ingenuity, and formidable skill, draws upon his heritage as a grandson of Holocaust victims and offers a stirring autobiographical collection of poems that is his most ambitious work to date.

Yeshiva Boys covers an expansive range of subjects -- from love, sex, and romance to repentance, humility, the meaning of democracy, Existentialism, modern European history, military intelligence, and the rituals associated with faith and prayer.

The title poem is a work in twelve parts that blends the elements of espionage fiction, memory, history, and moral philosophy. It reflects David's experience as a student in an orthodox Yeshiva, and it, along with many other poems in the book, explores what it means to be a Jew in America, what is gained and lost in assimilating to secular culture, how to understand the peculiar destiny of the Jewish people, and how to reconcile the existence of God with the knowledge of evil.

Beautiful, provocative, and accessible, this is David Lehman's most inspired collection.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherScribner
Release dateNov 17, 2009
ISBN9781439156261
Yeshiva Boys: Poems
Author

David Lehman

David Lehman, the series editor of The Best American Poetry, edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry. His books of poetry include The Morning Line, When a Woman Loves a Man, and The Daily Mirror. The most recent of his many nonfiction books is The Mysterious Romance of Murder: Crime, Detection, and the Spirit of Noir. He lives in New York City and Ithaca, New York.

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    Book preview

    Yeshiva Boys - David Lehman

    Also by David Lehman

    POETRY

    When a Woman Loves a Man (2005)

    The Evening Sun (2002)

    The Daily Mirror (2000)

    Valentine Place (1996)

    Operation Memory (1990)

    An Alternative to Speech (1986)

    COLLABORATIONS

    Poetry Forum (with Judith Hall) (2007)

    Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man (with James Cummins; drawings by Archie Rand) (2006)

    NONFICTION

    A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs (2009)

    The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets (1998)

    The Big Question (1994)

    The Line Forms Here (1992)

    Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man (1991)

    The Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection (1989)

    EDITED BY DAVID LEHMAN

    The Best American Poetry (series editor)

    The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present (2008)

    The Oxford Book of American Poetry (2006)

    Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present (2003)

    The KGB Bar Book of Poems (with Star Black) (2000)

    Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms (1995)

    James Merrill: Essays in Criticism (with Charles Berger) (1983)

    Beyond Amazement: New Essays on John Ashbery (1980)

    Yeshiva Boys

    Poems

    David Lehman

    SCRIBNER

    A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

    1230 Avenue of the Americas

    New York, NY 10020

    www.SimonandSchuster.com

    This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

    Copyright © 2009 by David Lehman

    All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

    First Scribner hardcover edition November 2009

    SCRIBNER and design are registered trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.

    For information about special discounts for bulk purchases,

    please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at

    1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.

    The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

    DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING

    Text set in Sabon

    Manufactured in the United States of America

    10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2009024143

    ISBN 978-1-4391-3617-1

    ISBN 978-1-4391-5626-1 (ebook)

    In memoriam

    Joseph Lehman,

    1912–1971

    Anne Lehman,

    1915–2009

    CONTENTS

    I

    On Purpose

    A Dedication

    Confessions of a Mask

    The Shield of a Greeting

    Salutation

    Election Day

    The Road to Help

    Coded Love Poem

    Summer Romance

    Hopper

    Hymn to Man

    Post Time

    The Hotel Fiesta Sestina

    Desolation Row

    But Only . . .

    Les Enfants terribles

    Obit

    Money Variations

    Curse

    Death, the Theory

    The Quickmuse Poems

    Homily

    The Kiss

    A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

    II

    The Will to Live

    L’Shana Tova

    The Trip Not Taken

    Paris, 1971

    French Movie

    Existentialism

    The Change

    On Humility

    Ambivalence

    God Will Provide

    Days of Penitence and Awe

    God: A Sestina

    Prophecy

    Yeshiva Boys

    Epilogue

    Acknowledgments and Notes

    Yeshiva Boys

    Part I

    On Purpose

    What is the purpose of your poems?

    I’m glad you asked me that

    as I stand here in Mr. Ferry’s eleventh-grade English class

    in Lake Forest High School

    I have given a lot of thought to purpose

    Walking with a purposeful air in New York City

    has obvious benefits in the chill of the night with wind

    and it’s even better when it’s no bluff

    you do know where you’re going

    from day to day

    and you know when it’s over

    so it’s like a story with a beginning middle and end

    yet you could not tell me the purpose

    of high school humiliation and I could not tell you

    the purpose of this dream where you get up from these desks

    and go to college and become lawyers or failures or soccer moms

    and when you wake up you will have no recollection

    of this encounter in the dark but it will linger nevertheless

    and bring refreshment to your soul

    A Dedication

    To Henri Michaux, whose "major ordeals

    of the mind and countless minor ones"

    have hurt me like a wound that heals

    leaving no scar, I dedicate my four major rhododendrons

    and minor myrtle, day lilies, dill, rosemary,

    and the underrated

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