Yeshiva Boys: Poems
By David Lehman
()
About this ebook
Yeshiva Boys covers an expansive range of subjects -- from love, sex, and romance to repentance, humility, the meaning of democracy, Existentialism, modern European history, military intelligence, and the rituals associated with faith and prayer.
The title poem is a work in twelve parts that blends the elements of espionage fiction, memory, history, and moral philosophy. It reflects David's experience as a student in an orthodox Yeshiva, and it, along with many other poems in the book, explores what it means to be a Jew in America, what is gained and lost in assimilating to secular culture, how to understand the peculiar destiny of the Jewish people, and how to reconcile the existence of God with the knowledge of evil.
Beautiful, provocative, and accessible, this is David Lehman's most inspired collection.
David Lehman
David Lehman, the series editor of The Best American Poetry, edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry. His books of poetry include The Morning Line, When a Woman Loves a Man, and The Daily Mirror. The most recent of his many nonfiction books is The Mysterious Romance of Murder: Crime, Detection, and the Spirit of Noir. He lives in New York City and Ithaca, New York.
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Yeshiva Boys - David Lehman
Also by David Lehman
POETRY
When a Woman Loves a Man (2005)
The Evening Sun (2002)
The Daily Mirror (2000)
Valentine Place (1996)
Operation Memory (1990)
An Alternative to Speech (1986)
COLLABORATIONS
Poetry Forum (with Judith Hall) (2007)
Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man (with James Cummins; drawings by Archie Rand) (2006)
NONFICTION
A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs (2009)
The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets (1998)
The Big Question (1994)
The Line Forms Here (1992)
Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man (1991)
The Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection (1989)
EDITED BY DAVID LEHMAN
The Best American Poetry (series editor)
The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present (2008)
The Oxford Book of American Poetry (2006)
Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present (2003)
The KGB Bar Book of Poems (with Star Black) (2000)
Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms (1995)
James Merrill: Essays in Criticism (with Charles Berger) (1983)
Beyond Amazement: New Essays on John Ashbery (1980)
Yeshiva Boys
Poems
David Lehman
SCRIBNER
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by David Lehman
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Scribner hardcover edition November 2009
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DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING
Text set in Sabon
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009024143
ISBN 978-1-4391-3617-1
ISBN 978-1-4391-5626-1 (ebook)
In memoriam
Joseph Lehman,
1912–1971
Anne Lehman,
1915–2009
CONTENTS
I
On Purpose
A Dedication
Confessions of a Mask
The Shield of a Greeting
Salutation
Election Day
The Road to Help
Coded Love Poem
Summer Romance
Hopper
Hymn to Man
Post Time
The Hotel Fiesta Sestina
Desolation Row
But Only . . .
Les Enfants terribles
Obit
Money Variations
Curse
Death, the Theory
The Quickmuse
Poems
Homily
The Kiss
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
II
The Will to Live
L’Shana Tova
The Trip Not Taken
Paris, 1971
French Movie
Existentialism
The Change
On Humility
Ambivalence
God Will Provide
Days of Penitence and Awe
God: A Sestina
Prophecy
Yeshiva Boys
Epilogue
Acknowledgments and Notes
Yeshiva Boys
Part I
On Purpose
What is the purpose of your poems?
I’m glad you asked me that
as I stand here in Mr. Ferry’s eleventh-grade English class
in Lake Forest High School
I have given a lot of thought to purpose
Walking with a purposeful air in New York City
has obvious benefits in the chill of the night with wind
and it’s even better when it’s no bluff
you do know where you’re going
from day to day
and you know when it’s over
so it’s like a story with a beginning middle and end
yet you could not tell me the purpose
of high school humiliation and I could not tell you
the purpose of this dream where you get up from these desks
and go to college and become lawyers or failures or soccer moms
and when you wake up you will have no recollection
of this encounter in the dark but it will linger nevertheless
and bring refreshment to your soul
A Dedication
To Henri Michaux, whose "major ordeals
of the mind and countless minor ones"
have hurt me like a wound that heals
leaving no scar, I dedicate my four major rhododendrons
and minor myrtle, day lilies, dill, rosemary,
and the underrated