Back to Results
Cover image of The View We're Granted
Cover image of The View We're Granted
Share this Title:

The View We're Granted

poems by Peter Filkins

Publication Date
Binding Type

These poems consider large events, such as 9/11 and the Holocaust, as well as everyday concerns like quilting, ice skating, or the beauty of a stand of sugar maples in winter.

Co-Winner of the Sheila Motton Book Award of the New England Poetry Club

In the pivotal poem "Marking Time," which appears almost exactly halfway through Peter Filkins’s fourth collection of poetry, the speaker reflects on the death of a sibling and how time is marked by our memories. These memories, these moments—whether spent contemplating a painting by Vermeer or the simple toss of a bean bag—ultimately shape who we are...

These poems consider large events, such as 9/11 and the Holocaust, as well as everyday concerns like quilting, ice skating, or the beauty of a stand of sugar maples in winter.

Co-Winner of the Sheila Motton Book Award of the New England Poetry Club

In the pivotal poem "Marking Time," which appears almost exactly halfway through Peter Filkins’s fourth collection of poetry, the speaker reflects on the death of a sibling and how time is marked by our memories. These memories, these moments—whether spent contemplating a painting by Vermeer or the simple toss of a bean bag—ultimately shape who we are. "Yet you are with me here, with me here again, / where neither that moon nor you exist, but live / tethered to this memory composed of words."

These are poems unafraid to be graceful and engaging. They attain an assurance and stability rare in contemporary poetry, while their careful balance of sadness and joy reminds the reader of the difficult negotiations we make in life.

Reviews

Reviews

This graceful, skilled poet writes especially moving poems.

Peter Filkins's beautifully articulated, reticulated poems are filled with questions, and the questions they're filled with are the unanswerable ones. Their distinction and power lie in their ability to make us ask those questions, too, as if for the first time.

As one who hailed Peter Filkins’s stunning first book, I am happy to say that its great promise has been realized with The View We’re Granted.

Peter Filkins manages to use form to lure the colloquial toward song, as well as to invest moments of song with an awareness of the perils and possibilities of our everyday world. It's a tension that is revelatory, and one that claims, at the end, the power of poetry to survive, and to help us.

A deeply moving collection. Filkins traces out the rhythms of loss and renewal, of childhood and adulthood, in a blank verse so skillfully worked it seems effortless. Very few poets today write with such power and assurance.

See All Reviews
About

Book Details

Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
5.5
x
8.5
Pages
80
ISBN
9781421406329
Table of Contents

I
Dismantling the Birches
Theh Hunters
The News at 10
9/12
Sunflowers
The Globe
Owen's Shark
Solitaire
Chinatown
Requiem for the Body Snatchers
II
Sirens
Vermeer
Rocky
Girl, 2, Pulled from Pond
Beanbag Toss
Marking

I
Dismantling the Birches
Theh Hunters
The News at 10
9/12
Sunflowers
The Globe
Owen's Shark
Solitaire
Chinatown
Requiem for the Body Snatchers
II
Sirens
Vermeer
Rocky
Girl, 2, Pulled from Pond
Beanbag Toss
Marking Time
III
Speed Skaters
The View
Waterfall, Rock, Trout
A Certain Grammar
Weatherwise
A County Quilt
Letter to Susan in Seattle
Constable's Clouds
The Broken Piano
A Stand of Maple
Notes on the Poems
Acknowledgments

Author Bio
Peter Filkins
Featured Contributor

Peter Filkins

Peter Filkins is a poet who teaches writing and literature at Bard College at Simon’s Rock. He is the author of What She Knew and After Homer as well as the chapbook Augustine's Vision. He has also translated the poetry and novels of Ingeborg Bachmann and the novels of H. G. Adler.