The Stones of Strasbourg and Other Poems

By H. R. Stoneback

Subjects: Poetry
Imprint: Distribution Partners
Paperback : 9781930337855, 76 pages, July 2015

Table of contents

The Stones of Strasbourg
I. Family History & Ancestral Myths
II. Erwin von Steinbach 1244-1318
III. Sabina von Steinbach c. 1274-?
Appendix
Other Poems
The First Lady of the Organ: A Song, a Kiss for Diane Bish
Old Man on Footbridge behind Notre-Dame
Censer and Censorium: A 72nd Birthday Poem
Marine Corps Forced March Mail-Call
In Places Where Our Fathers Played
Angels Do Not Purr & Poems Go BRRrrr

A multilayered study and poetic evocation of one of the world’s greatest architectural wonders, Strasbourg Cathedral.

Description

This book is about the Strasbourg Cathedral, one of the architectural wonders in European history and for centuries the tallest building on Earth. The long title poem "The Stones of Strasbourg" is a complex, symphonic evocation of the great cathedral and a tribute to its builders, Erwin and Sabina von Steinbach, held by the poet's family tradition to be his ancestors. Thus the poem is not a dry, detached study of a historic wonder, but a penetrating and powerful demonstration of the urgency and presentness of the past.

H. R. Stoneback is Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz and an internationally renowned poet and literary critic. He currently serves as President of the Hemingway Foundation & Society.

Reviews

Praise for H. R. Stoneback's Café Millennium & Other Poems

"Performs an act of verbal hypnosis on its reader. " — Billy Collins, Poet Laureate