{"id":3012,"date":"2013-08-26T21:37:01","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T21:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/?page_id=3012"},"modified":"2022-12-20T16:41:14","modified_gmt":"2022-12-20T21:41:14","slug":"train-dance","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/train-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Train Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″]\"Train<\/a><\/p>\n

paper \u2022 72 pages \u2022 15.95
\nISBN-13:\u00a0978-1-935536-14-7<\/p>\n

Add to Cart<\/a>
\n[\/column]<\/p>\n

Train Dance<\/em><\/h1>\n

Jonathan Wells<\/h2>\n

Opening with a dream vision of the train commute between the suburbs and New York City\u2019s Grand\u00a0Central Station, Train Dance<\/em> imagines its speaker able to \u201ctrace seven streams with my fingertip into\/\/the estuary bottom through unfigured air where the river\/ spreads its fingers into the Sound.\u201d In\u00a0Wells\u2019 opening image, locomotion acts both as an event in one\u2019s life and a location in one\u2019s memory.\u00a0Train Dance<\/em>, with its \u201cStations of the Night\u201d and cars that \u201caccelerate\/\/ like the rhythm of slow\u00a0maracas gaining\/ on a sad old Cuban song,\u201d inks a series of journeys through which a son comes to\u00a0understand his mother\u2019s death, the train\u2019s purpose, and the way writing physically engraves events in\u00a0the memory, turning them into locations to which one returns, like stations.<\/p>\n

Wells reflects on poetry\u2019s place amid the urban variety, how it lets him \u201cCarry myself like a tune \/ Into\u00a0the chorus of the city.\u201d He also takes us, in such poems as \u201cDylan Thomas Comes to Ossining\u201d and\u00a0\u201cA Hike to Grizzly Lake,\u201d off the beaten path to where \u201csmall incidents will nudge you from your
\nsleep tonight,\u201d and as far afield as \u201cAlexandroupolis station, with War and Peace as my pillow.\u201d The\u00a0motif of recall and repeat links these places and experiences: aware that \u201cOne life is long enough to\u00a0remember\/ what you have forgotten \u2013 the attic swings\/ laughing on their chains,\u201d Wells reels the\u00a0\u201cblack and white footage that memory preserves,\u201d footage in which \u201cNearly spirit, my mother dies\u00a0again disappearing\/ while still here, driving through her glass house.\u201d<\/p>\n

A debut collection by a writer turning to poetry midlife, Train Dance<\/em> offers the measured wisdom of\u00a0the contemporary world observed then distinguished in crafted lines that know \u201cno matter how far I\u00a0lean into those turns, I cannot catch tomorrow\u2019s train tonight.\u201d Able to write from a distance that\u00a0watches as \u201cAmerica falls asleep from East to West,\u201d Wells also captures \u201cthe faces of boys [\u2026] lost\u00a0inside the cheeks of men\u201d as the poem \u201cmust wait its turn in the queue of what is unsayable; the red\u00a0fox rubbing out his tracks with his tail, the infant\u2019s heart alive today, lifting his first pair of fists.\u201d<\/p>\n

About the Author<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[column col=”1\/4″] paper \u2022 72 pages \u2022 15.95 ISBN-13:\u00a0978-1-935536-14-7 Add to Cart [\/column] Train Dance Jonathan Wells Opening with a dream vision of the train commute between the suburbs and New York City\u2019s Grand\u00a0Central Station, Train Dance imagines its speaker able to \u201ctrace seven streams with my fingertip into\/\/the estuary bottom through unfigured air where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3012","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3012"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18841,"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3012\/revisions\/18841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourwaybooks.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}