The Singers I Prefer

By Christian Barter and Sydney Lea

Trained as a musician and composer, Barter's poems are driven by the rhythm and lyricism, punctuated with occasional dissonances that startle the reader with profound perceptions hidden within... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0972304541
• ISBN13: 9780972304542
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: CavanKerry Press
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.9" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A haunting, soft-spoken, sometimes bitterly insightful collection

The Singers I Prefer is the debut collection of original free-verse poetry by Christian Barter, an emerging Maine poet who has been previously published in such journals as The Georgia Review, North American Review, and American Scholar. The brief, emotional verses paint a poignant and sometimes tragic picture of daily life and the struggle to persevere in the face of an uncertain future. A haunting, soft-spoken, sometimes bitterly insightful collection. "There Are No Stars Tonight but Those of Memory": Tonight the real stars seem / just memories // crowding the black above my house // still bright as any city / seen from a hill // where cities seem to be // the things we planned to build.

poems influenced by music and exploring the nature of music

What Barter says in the poem "On a Beethoven Cello Sonata" could also be said about his own poems: "The strain/that labors cadence after cadence toward/resolution, wresting its course away/from the pestering piano, arrives/only after everything is so changed/that where it meant to go is no longer/possible...." Similarly, you never know where Barter's poems are going to go. But this doesn't mean they are anarchic, or are simply pleasing or inspired gatherings of images. Like music, the poems have no reason, but rather play out intimations and ideas inhering in their animating moods, memories, and thoughts. Though Barter uses a Beethoven cello sonata in tendering something about music which also wittingly or by intuition or chance refers to his own poetry, Barter's poetry is more like Bach's music than Beethoven's. The emotional restraint and preciseness of Barter's poems makes them more like Bach's music.