Codes Appearing: Poems 1979-1988

By Michael Palmer

Book Overview

Codes Appearing combines in a single volume three seminal and long unavailable collections by Michael Palmer. This volume rescues from limbo three of his most beautiful poetry volumes: Notes for Echo Lake, First Figure, and Sun (1981, 1984, 1988). Making available a great deal of Palmer's most influential, exciting, and stunning work, Codes Appearing is a landmark volume. The significance of his writing is every day more recognized. "It is impossible," as The Boston Review noted, "to overstate Palmer's importance." "Michael Palmer, '" as Joshua Clover declared in The Village Voice, "is the most influential avant-gardist working, and perhaps the greatest poet of his generation.... And his books, including the essential '80s triptych of Notes for Echo Lake, First Figure, and Sun, are organized not by story but by a dreamland of calculus and sway.... Palmer's] genius is for making the world strange again."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811214702
• ISBN13: 9780811214704
• Release Date: May 2001
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 245 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Palmer book to own

I won't try to sum up in a pithy review the scope and content of this collection, just to say that it is strange, lyrical, and searching. You get a sense that the writer is taking nothing for granted, down to the letter. He expresses a sincere desire to find meaning in the world. There is doubt and dismay throughout, but in the end the lingering feeling is one of hope. Collects three of his most important books in one volume. Recommended.