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David St. John is the author of eleven collections of poetry (including Study for the World’s Body, nominated for the National Book Award in poetry) as well as a volume of essays, interviews, and reviews titled Where the Angels Come Toward Us. A chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, he is University Professor and chair of the English Department at the University of Southern California, and lives in Venice Beach, California.

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A haunting and inventive book length sequence of poems from the distinguished author of Study for the World's Body.

The Face is both fiercely lyrical and intimately conversational. Coming to terms with the failure of a great love, the speaker descends into his own dark night of the soul. Here are poems that explore the drama of the shattered self in a variety of voices, calling on memory to speak and imagination to make beauty from the shards. Slowly, the speaker reassembles his life and again finds faith in himself and the world. These poems reveal a swirling cinematic poetry of visionary scope; meditative and confessional in some moments, ironic and playful in others.

Deeply passionate and raw in its candour, The Face may be for this generation of poets what Lowell's Life Studies and Ashbery's Self–Portrait in a Convex Mirror were.

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The Face

A Novella in VerseBy David St John

Harper Perennial

Copyright © 2005 David St John
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780060593674

Chapter One

I used to live there, but that wasBefore yesterday. Yesterday is so boring, don't you think?Even my black trench coat thinks so, & it's very sophisticated,Having once belonged to Dennis Hopper before I found itOn the used rack at Animal House. Ron the owner says, fingeringThe shiny ink of the lapels, "Dennis Hopper." "Cool," I say.So into the bright day I walk out like the night. "Face it,"Toni says when she sees me laterAt the sushi counter at Hama, "Dennis Hopper you're not." "OK," I say -"But the spicy tuna's terrific today." Which is why todayIs better than yesterday, don't you think? I said that to myself, notTo Toni or Ron or anybody. I said to myself, Yesterday is still so boring;

When I used to live there it was boring & even before yesterdayIt was boring - I mean, even before I knew it was boring,Before yesterday - & if I stillLived there I would probably think it was boring. But today ...Today, here with you standing right in front of me likeThe body of a shadow or like a shadow naked as a body,Like a woman dressed in a body nakedAs a shadow, like a shadow undressing before a mirror, like yesterday,Like a mirror with a shadow & a trench coat ... Well, here, today, asWe both undo the loose belts ofOur shadows, our trench coats, our bodies, here with you ...It's really never boring. Not today, no, & not even beforeyesterday.

Continues...

Excerpted from The Faceby David St John Copyright © 2005 by David St John. Excerpted by permission.
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