{"product_id":"wall-of-sound-paperback","title":"Wall of Sound - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eDavid Stephenson\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eWall of Sound, \u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eDavid Stephenson's sonnets, rhymed quatrains, and blank verse illuminate a rich variety of worlds and personalities. From a steel mill to a paint factory to a police impound lot, Stephenson's poetry of place explores unexpectedly fascinating locales. He persuasively imagines the lives within a snow globe, and he draws thoughtful parallels between a casino and a mine, a crop duster and a god. Stephenson engages the reader with a conversational tone and well-chosen rhymes; the clever eye-rhyme of \"watch\" and \"match\" makes clear the frustration of a man hoping to synchronize all his timepieces. And with convincing empathy, Stephenson writes in the voices of others-animate and inanimate-including a lab rat, a match, a spacecraft, and Sir Isaac Newton. \"Toolmaker\" exemplifies one of the book's most effective techniques, the juxtaposition of the mundane and the profound: this poem's persona suggests, with understated but scathing wisdom, that what marks us as human is not our use of tools, but \"an inborn urge to sharpen blades.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJean L. Kreiling\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDavid Stephenson's \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eWall of Sound\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eis rich and full, many-textured and multi-layered. Stephenson's detailed poems cover a wide range of subjects, with landscapes both urban (a freeway casino, a muffler shop, a Ramada Inn) and rural (the ditches and fields of his childhood, a rock quarry on his grandfather's farm). Stephenson also writes in the voices of others, both human (Spartacus, Merlin, a tomb-builder at Thebes) and non-human (a pet dog, a cavefish, a dairy cow), as well as the \"in-between\" monster of Frankenstein. The book contains more personal poems too, and the most moving ones include memories of his late father and brother. There are well-made sonnets here, rhyming quatrains and other forms, which give the book an overall music. But kudos to Stephenson for crafting his poems in a more relaxed formalism - iambic pentameter that's not metronomic, rhymes that often work quietly in the background. In these poems, meaning and substance are as important as form, making \u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003eWall of Sound\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/i\u003ean antidote for the indecipherable lines that inundate poetry today.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eElise Hempel \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 96\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.23 x 9 x 6 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\n            \u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e October 18, 2022\u003c\/div\u003e\n            ","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67850112729395,"sku":"9781639802135","price":34.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0300\/5595\/6612\/files\/OR7BqX_ezi9781639802135.webp?v=1793505667","url":"https:\/\/www.vysn.com\/products\/wall-of-sound-paperback","provider":"VYSN","version":"1.0","type":"link"}