Beethoven in Denver and Other Poems

Conundrum Press, 1999. Hardcover. Like New/Fine . 5x0x9. Some light edgewear to dustjacket. In Beethoven in Denver and Other Poems, Burton Raffel brings a lifetime of artistry to an enchanting and visionary story, followed by a sequence of jewel-like lyrics. In the title poem, set during Raffel's time as a Professor of English at Denver Univeristy, Beethoven returns from the dead and moves in with Raffel for extended conversations on music, politics, women, history, chocolate, mountains, love and God. According to the narrator, the composer returns because "Beethoven would risk anything," but it is Raffel who has dared to imagine this magical, whimsical and inspired dialogue, forging anew the character of Romantic inspiration. Over the course of the poem, Beethoven emerges as both ordinary and supernatural, naive yet eternal, vulgar and divine. Filled both with creative joy and the acknowledgment of death, Beethoven in Denver and Other Poems stands as a major and mature work by one of the gifted poets of our time.Author of more than 60 books including a translation of Beowulf that has sold more than one million copies, Burton Raffel is one of the most widely read American poets of the second half of the twentieth century. In addition to six previous volumes of his own poetry, he has published critical studies of T. S. Eliot, Robert Lowell, Ezra Pound and translated major poetic works from a dozen languages.