Anniversary is a sequence of love poems presented through a fracture of space and time: a husband still here and writing, a wife no longer here but present.
Other poems punctuate this: parents, myths, the very young, the very old, various dead, various missing, are lit up in a few lines, then disappear. Places also loom up unexpectedly: a hotel room in Dublin, a lake in the North Woods of Wisconsin, a hospice in Ekaterinaberg, a Paris street. Whether a dream or not, they carry over and are described with precision.
"Anniversary calls our attention to the circularity of our lives, the ways we live and relive. In these poems time stops, starts, shuffles and leaps, as it does in our minds, illuminated by flashes of emotion, full of light, colour and intelligent protest... He catches the sudden blanks that are filled with the mind’s yearning for understanding... This is a passionate exploration of what makes life beautiful and devastating, a journey in delight, bereavement and above all memory."
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Richard Halperin was born in 1943 and lives in Paris. He holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the City University of New York. His last office job was Chief of Teacher Education for the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. For UNESCO, he edited the booklet Reading and Writing Poetry: The Recommendations of Noted Poets from Many Lands on the Teaching of Poetry in Secondary Schools. Since 2005, more than eighty of Mr. Halperin’s poems have been published, mainly in journals in Ireland and the U.K. ‘For Victor Gollancz’ won first prize in the Blue Butterfly Christian Poetry Competition 2007. In 2009, he was Featured Poet in The Stinging Fly’s Summer issue. He has given readings at the West Cork Literary Festival, the Dublin Writers Centre, the White House Pub (Limerick) and, in Paris, the Live Poets Society. Anniversary is his first collection.
Other poems punctuate this: parents, myths, the very young, the very old, various dead, various missing, are lit up in a few lines, then disappear. Places also loom up unexpectedly: a hotel room in Dublin, a lake in the North Woods of Wisconsin, a hospice in Ekaterinaberg, a Paris street. Whether a dream or not, they carry over and are described with precision.
"Anniversary calls our attention to the circularity of our lives, the ways we live and relive. In these poems time stops, starts, shuffles and leaps, as it does in our minds, illuminated by flashes of emotion, full of light, colour and intelligent protest... He catches the sudden blanks that are filled with the mind’s yearning for understanding... This is a passionate exploration of what makes life beautiful and devastating, a journey in delight, bereavement and above all memory."
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Richard Halperin was born in 1943 and lives in Paris. He holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the City University of New York. His last office job was Chief of Teacher Education for the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. For UNESCO, he edited the booklet Reading and Writing Poetry: The Recommendations of Noted Poets from Many Lands on the Teaching of Poetry in Secondary Schools. Since 2005, more than eighty of Mr. Halperin’s poems have been published, mainly in journals in Ireland and the U.K. ‘For Victor Gollancz’ won first prize in the Blue Butterfly Christian Poetry Competition 2007. In 2009, he was Featured Poet in The Stinging Fly’s Summer issue. He has given readings at the West Cork Literary Festival, the Dublin Writers Centre, the White House Pub (Limerick) and, in Paris, the Live Poets Society. Anniversary is his first collection.