Carcanet Press - Then the War

Description
Author
Awards
Reviews

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2023

Then the War and Selected Poems, 2007–2020 is two books in one: a representative selection from seven of Carl Phillips's innovative earlier collections and a complete new book of poems, providing a powerful introduction to European readers. A seemingly gentle but resolute attention to the things of this world evokes the joyful and painful elements in the contemporary human condition, characterised by loneliness and an unquenchable thirst for love. He is a poet who knows the rules and bends or breaks them, a master of syntax and prosody, avoiding convention and pursuing the lines of desire.

In a starred review of this book, Publishers Weekly said, 'These lyrically rich, insightful poems are full of palpable aching [...] and a human urge to understand. This remarkable compendium is a testament to the spirit of Phillips's work.'

Carl Phillips is the author of 16 books of poetry, most recently Then the War: And Selected Poems 2007-2020 (Carcanet, 2022), which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. Phillips has also written three prose books, most recently My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing (Yale University Press, 2022). ... read more

Awards won by Carl Phillips Short-listed, 2024 The T.S. Eliot Prize (Scattered Snows, to the North) Winner, 2023 The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
(Then the War)

'Then the War, is a forest-like network of linguistic relationships... ideas are turned over at different angles and that way gather complexity and momentum. Phillips operates in an altogether superior league.'

Carol Rumens, The Poetry Review

'A welcome collection of earlier and new work by an unusually far-reaching poetic explorer.'

Carol Rumens, The Guardian where 'For Nothing Tender About It' was Poem of the Week

'...a poet whose art is among the best representations we have of the modern mind in all its wonder and melancholy uncertainty.'

Jesse Nathan, McSweeneys

'Phillip's is a poet of enchantment and persuasion... [his] poems are contemplative, rich, and troubled...a rich exploration of reality and imagination, of making art out of memories and making memories out of art.'

Richie Hoffman, LA Review of Books

'The 208 pages form a wonderfully compendious introduction to this major US poet. For those who have admired his work in the three decades since his debut, they are glowing confirmation that, as he enters his 60s, Phillips is writing better than ever ... a single project of the utmost immediacy.'

Fiona Sampson, The Guardian

Praise for Carl Phillips 'These are often exquisitely sculpted poems, internal weather unravelling at the borderlines of mythology and memory, always refusing to settle for the obvious thing, or the received idea. ... This is a book rich in memory, the telling gesture and an almost Augustan refusal of the histrionic, despite also being a book of at-times anonymous (or anonymising) sex, regret, and passion.'
Declan Ryan, The Irish Times

'These wise poems often begin by locating us in a real landscape - a wood, a riverbank - and somehow that landscape stays real even after we've learnt it's merely conjured from his imagination, a metaphor for a feeling that cannot be put into words any other way. And his syntax is a thing of wonder - swerving, doubting, correcting itself, unspooling clause after clause over several stanzas, in counterpoint to his careful line-breaks.'

Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph
'Scattered Snows, to the North is a bold and complex collection, and Phillips risks much both in its soul-baring intimacy and vulnerability, at once personal ... yet also moving much beyond the simple confessional. ... This is an important book, and there is much to learn, to attend to, to linger over, and to take pleasure from these 'songs... built from things too difficult to speak of'. So risk it--accept that challenge.'

Gail Low, Imagined Spaces
'A beautiful book... There's a constant slippage between the tenor and the vehicle of metaphors, such that objects of abstract comparison feel as real as the real.'

Elisa Gabbert, The New York Times
'Quietly breath-taking. Phillips seems to be mulling over life's great questions by interrogating (or glancing sideways at) memory, relationships, encounters, and nature. Perhaps language itself is the closest we have to an ungraspable, beautiful truth.'

Ian Humphreys, The Poetry Society
'Phillips is a classicist-poet in the vein of Hopkins, whose instruction by Hill offered a language of devotion that he could apply toward desire, love, and contemplation. His myriad devotions--to nature, to sex, and to truth--are no less prayerful than those of religious believers. The result is a poet whose work carries sublimity and timelessness, and whose syntax carries an ancient strangeness and heft.'

Nick Ripatrazone, Poetry Foundation
'This is the best that poetry offers - earthly but not earthbound, self-aware yet never self-indulgent, philosophical but with a firm awareness of emotional puzzlement. Phillips has an unparalleled gift for teasing out the peculiarity of grammar and syntax; his breath-long, branching lines move in an unpredictable pattern that keeps our hearts stopping and racing. Open-minded, erudite and deeply moving, this book of love and memory will withstand years of rereading.'

Kit Fan, The Guardian
'Perhaps no poet has sought so hard and so long, in such a variety of grammatical forms, for ways to depict such familiar situations - a hookup, a breakup, a wish to turn back time.'

Stephanie Burt, The New York Times

'In Carl Phillips's ravishing new collection, the elegiacal vision, still haunted by an erotics of loss has become enraptured with belatedness... in sinuous complexes of metaphor that revive experiences through the glamour, renegade, melancholy, of their ruins.'

David Woo, LitHub

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Then the War And Selected Poems 2007-2020 Carl Phillips 10% off all versions Categories: 20th Century, 21st Century, American, BAME Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (224 pages) (Pub. Feb 2022) 9781800172296 £14.99 £13.49 eBook (EPUB) Needs ADE! (Pub. Feb 2022) 9781800172302 £11.99 £10.79 To use the EPUB version, you will need to have Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) installed on your device. You can find out more at https://www.adobe.com/uk/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html. Please do not purchase this version if you do not have and are not prepared to install, Adobe Digital Editions. Description Author Awards Reviews Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry 2023 Then the War and Selected Poems, 2007–2020 is two books in one: a representative selection from seven of Carl Phillips's innovative earlier collections and a complete new book of poems, providing a powerful introduction to European readers. A seemingly gentle but resolute attention to the things of this world evokes the joyful and painful elements in the contemporary human condition, characterised by loneliness and an unquenchable thirst for love. He is a poet who knows the rules and bends or breaks them, a master of syntax and prosody, avoiding convention and pursuing the lines of desire. In a starred review of this book, Publishers Weekly said, 'These lyrically rich, insightful poems are full of palpable aching [...] and a human urge to understand. This remarkable compendium is a testament to the spirit of Phillips's work.' Carl Phillips is the author of 16 books of poetry, most recently Then the War: And Selected Poems 2007-2020 (Carcanet, 2022), which won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. Phillips has also written three prose books, most recently My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations from a Life in Writing (Yale University Press, 2022). ... read more Awards won by Carl Phillips Short-listed, 2024 The T.S. Eliot Prize (Scattered Snows, to the North) Winner, 2023 The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (Then the War) 'Then the War, is a forest-like network of linguistic relationships... ideas are turned over at different angles and that way gather complexity and momentum. Phillips operates in an altogether superior league.' Carol Rumens, The Poetry Review 'A welcome collection of earlier and new work by an unusually far-reaching poetic explorer.' *Carol Rumens, The Guardian* where 'For Nothing Tender About It' was Poem of the Week** '...a poet whose art is among the best representations we have of the modern mind in all its wonder and melancholy uncertainty.' Jesse Nathan, McSweeneys 'Phillip's is a poet of enchantment and persuasion... [his] poems are contemplative, rich, and troubled...a rich exploration of reality and imagination, of making art out of memories and making memories out of art.' Richie Hoffman, LA Review of Books 'The 208 pages form a wonderfully compendious introduction to this major US poet. For those who have admired his work in the three decades since his debut, they are glowing confirmation that, as he enters his 60s, Phillips is writing better than ever ... a single project of the utmost immediacy.' Fiona Sampson, The Guardian Praise for Carl Phillips 'These are often exquisitely sculpted poems, internal weather unravelling at the borderlines of mythology and memory, always refusing to settle for the obvious thing, or the received idea. ... This is a book rich in memory, the telling gesture and an almost Augustan refusal of the histrionic, despite also being a book of at-times anonymous (or anonymising) sex, regret, and passion.' Declan Ryan, The Irish Times 'These wise poems often begin by locating us in a real landscape - a wood, a riverbank - and somehow that landscape stays real even after we've learnt it's merely conjured from his imagination, a metaphor for a feeling that cannot be put into words any other way. And his syntax is a thing of wonder - swerving, doubting, correcting itself, unspooling clause after clause over several stanzas, in counterpoint to his careful line-breaks.' Tristram Fane Saunders, The Telegraph 'Scattered Snows, to the North is a bold and complex collection, and Phillips risks much both in its soul-baring intimacy and vulnerability, at once personal ... yet also moving much beyond the simple confessional. ... This is an important book, and there is much to learn, to attend to, to linger over, and to take pleasure from these 'songs... built from things too difficult to speak of'. So risk it--accept that challenge.' Gail Low, Imagined Spaces 'A beautiful book... There's a constant slippage between the tenor and the vehicle of metaphors, such that objects of abstract comparison feel as real as the real.' Elisa Gabbert, The New York Times 'Quietly breath-taking. Phillips seems to be mulling over life's great questions by interrogating (or glancing sideways at) memory, relationships, encounters, and nature. Perhaps language itself is the closest we have to an ungraspable, beautiful truth.' Ian Humphreys, The Poetry Society 'Phillips is a classicist-poet in the vein of Hopkins, whose instruction by Hill offered a language of devotion that he could apply toward desire, love, and contemplation. His myriad devotions--to nature, to sex, and to truth--are no less prayerful than those of religious believers. The result is a poet whose work carries sublimity and timelessness, and whose syntax carries an ancient strangeness and heft.' Nick Ripatrazone, Poetry Foundation 'This is the best that poetry offers - earthly but not earthbound, self-aware yet never self-indulgent, philosophical but with a firm awareness of emotional puzzlement. Phillips has an unparalleled gift for teasing out the peculiarity of grammar and syntax; his breath-long, branching lines move in an unpredictable pattern that keeps our hearts stopping and racing. Open-minded, erudite and deeply moving, this book of love and memory will withstand years of rereading.' Kit Fan, The Guardian 'Perhaps no poet has sought so hard and so long, in such a variety of grammatical forms, for ways to depict such familiar situations - a hookup, a breakup, a wish to turn back time.' Stephanie Burt, The New York Times 'In Carl Phillips's ravishing new collection, the elegiacal vision, still haunted by an erotics of loss has become enraptured with belatedness... in sinuous complexes of metaphor that revive experiences through the glamour, renegade, melancholy, of their ruins.' David Woo, LitHub	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog We've Moved! read more Books of the Year read more One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more
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