Zeno's Eternity - by Mark Jarman (Paperback)

About the Book

A moving twelfth collection from New Formalist poet Mark Jarman.

Book Synopsis

"These sensitive and meditative poems offer up new ways to consider the passage of time."--Publishers Weekly

"A moving collection that acknowledges the limitations of the human mind, but also the limitless capacity of the human heart."--Chapter 16

The poems in Mark Jarman's new collection, Zeno's Eternity, take their cue from Zeno's paradox, which says that since space is infinitely divisible, an arrow traveling toward a target will never reach its destination. Everything exists in a kind of suspension.

From "The Arrow Paradox"

Zeno sent
his arrow flying
endlessly from point
to point along its arc
to make a point
about eternity:
getting there is tricky.

Though our lives run on, we may feel that certain moments are timeless, and love that moves us toward each other can give us a sense of eternity. Portraying moments from ordinary life and from times long past, moments both pivotal and mundane, Jarman encourages the reader to feel the beat of time and its inexplicable stillness. By making scenes indelible, the poet stops time; and we might ask ourselves, is this not only Zeno's eternity, but ours, too?

Review Quotes

"These sensitive and meditative poems offer up new ways to consider the passage of time."--Publishers Weekly

"A moving collection that acknowledges the limitations of the human mind, but also the limitless capacity of the human heart."--Chapter 16

PRAISE FOR MARK JARMAN'S OTHER BOOKS:

"Gratifying . . . On page after page, Jarman takes quotidian diurnal light and transforms it into solar energy."―Los Angeles Review of Books on Dailiness

"His specific ability to help the reader understand why a poem or even a particular word works is extraordinary."―ZYZZYVA on Dailiness

"With precision and tenderness, Jarman explores the sinew and soul of humankind."--Publishers Weekly on The Heronry

"In Mark Jarman's considerable new collection...[the poems] very often trace similar paths of thought and experience toward freedom, light, truth, and love."--Booklist on The Heronry

"While most of the poems explore faith in its many manifestations, there is something here transcendent that speaks to everyone. Highly recommended."--Library Journal on Epistles

"Mark Jarman is . . . one of the most thoughtful and adroit poets writing these days, a man with handsome ambitions."--The Georgia Review on The Black Riviera

About the Author

Mark Jarman is the author of eleven books of poetry. The
Heronry is his most recent. He has also published three books of essays and
reviews, won awards for his poetry, and received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is
Centennial Professor of English, Emeritus, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.