Part of our revived "Poetry Pamphlet" series, Two American Scenes features two masters of the essay discussing "found material."

Excerpts:

It was given to me, in the nineteenth century,
to spend a lifetime on this earth. Along with a few of the sorrows
that are appointed unto men, I have had innumerable enjoyments;
and the world has been to me, even from childhood,a great museum.

- Lydia Davis

Bad rapids. Bradley is knocked over the side; his foot catches
under the seat and he is dragged, head under water. Camped on
a sand beach, the wind blows a hurricane. Sand piles over us like
a snow-drift.

- Eliot Weinberge

About the Author
Lydia Davis is the author of one novel and seven story collections. Her collection Varieties of Disturbance: Stories was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award. She is the recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Award of Merit Medal, and was named a Chevalier of the Order of the Arts and Letters by the French government for her fiction and her translations of modern writers, including Maurice Blanchot, Michel Leiris, and Marcel Proust. Lydia Davis is the winner of the 2013 Man Booker International Prize. Eliot Weinberger's books of literary essays include Karmic Traces, An Elemental Thing, The Ghosts of Birds, and Angels & Saints. His political writings are collected in What I Heard About Iraq and What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles. The author of a study of Chinese poetry translation, 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei, he is a translator of the poetry of Bei Dao and the editor of The New Directions Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry. He was formerly the general editor of the series Calligrams: Writings from and on China and the literary editor of the Murty Classical Library of India. Among his many translations of Latin American poetry and prose are The Poems of Octavio Paz, Paz's In Light of India, Vicente Huidobro's Altazor, Xavier Villaurrutia's Nostalgia for Death, and Jorge Luis Borges' Seven Nights and Selected Non-Fictions. He has been publishing with New Directions since 1975.

Reviews
"Both poets remind us that American history is rich with material for contemporary artists, and that the seeds of patriotism are simple and enduring-a patch of land, a handful of human beings. But like all good patriots, they have their disagreements. Davis reveres the American landscape for all that it gives us. Weinberger reveres it for what it challenges us to become." -- Brian Hurley - Fiction Advocate



Book Information
ISBN 9780811220415
Author Lydia Davis
Format Paperback
Page Count 48
Imprint New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publisher New Directions Publishing Corporation
Weight(grams) 89g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 155mm * 5mm