Ooga-Booga
From AwardAnnals
 | |
| Author(s) | Frederick Seidel |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Honors | |
| From the winner of the PEN/Voelker Award, poems of love, terror, rage, and desire. The poems in Ooga-Booga are about a youthful slave owner and his aging slave, and both are the same man. This is the tenderest, most savage collection yet from “the most frightening American poet ever” (Calvin Bedient, Boston Review). | |
From the winner of the PEN/Voelker Award, poems of love, terror, rage, and desire.
Here I am, not a practical man,
But clear-eyed in my contact lenses,
Following no doubt a slightly different line than the others,
Seeking sexual pleasure above all else,
Despairing of art and of life,
Seeking protection from death by seeking it
On a racebike, finding release and belief on two wheels…
—from “The Death of the Shah”
The poems in Ooga-Booga are about a youthful slave owner and his aging slave, and both are the same man. This is the tenderest, most savage collection yet from “the most frightening American poet ever” (Calvin Bedient, Boston Review).
Honors
- 2006 LATimes–Poetry winner
- 2007 Griffin International shortlist
- 2006 NBCC–Poetry finalist
- Score: 22.56
