AMERICA BOUND
An Epic for Our Time
by David Radavich
Published by: Plain View Press, P.O. Box
42255, Austin, TX 78704; (512) 440-7319; www.plainviewpress.net
About the Book:
America
Bound: An Epic for Our Time combines poetry, drama, and fiction
into an imaginative rendering of American history and culture since World
War II. Following introductory poems offering mythic and historic
perspective, the heart of the epic features 24 dramatic monologues spoken
by three generations of Americans, each in his or her unique voice commenting
on the world. Four “stages” follow the seasons from spring to winter.
Many of the central characters know and interact with each other from one
generation to the next in an unfolding drama of dreams pursued, challenges
confronted, and sorrows lamented.
About the Author:
David Radavich is the author of Slain
Species (Court Poetry Press, London), By
the Way: Poems over the Years (Buttonwood, 1998), and Greatest
Hits (Pudding House, 2000), along with several poetry chapbooks.
He has published a full-length comedy, Nevertheless . . ., several
short dramas, and a wide range of poems in journals and anthologies.
His plays have been performed across the U.S., including five Off-Off-Broadway
productions, and in Europe. Radavich has given poetry readings in
such far-flung locations as Egypt, Greece, Iceland, and Scotland and enjoys
directing and performing in dramatic readings. His essays, both scholarly
and informal, have appeared in journals varying from American Drama
to U.S. News & World Report. America Bound
combines the author’s love of both poetry and drama into a larger national
narrative.
Comment by Leonora Smith:
“This is poetry that matters. Radavich
has a dramatist’s gift of being able to evoke character with only a few
words from a speaker’s mouth: these are poems that come from the tongue,
and like intimate, personal speech, invite us to speak back. Though
the speakers reflect social movements and economic booms and busts, they
are never abstractions or simply victims, but people telling their stories
of gains and losses in ways that invite compassion, respect, and fellow
feeling.
This book makes me hopeful for the future
of American poetics as part of our political discourse, as part of a common
life that binds our diverse interests. If more poets had Radavich’s
ambition—to write for a broad audience, instead of only a few; to write
about the world we live in and what we owe to others—then we would see
people everywhere with poems in their pockets and in their briefcases.”
Comment by Christian Knoeller:
“In this richly polyphonic text,
Radavich couples narrative verse with interlocking dramatic monologues
to deliver a revisionist history of America since the second World War—an
account across generations so inclusive as to seem Whitmanesque—encompassing
personal and national identities, conscience and community. 'I hear
the voices of America,' writes Radavich, and through them America
Bound renders a cultural landscape altered in the wake of the Twentieth
Century. By 'listening to the voices of those who lived simply for
themselves and others in the heartland of their history,' voices aching
to be heard, we sense how their stories are also ours, and their questions—'Where
do we all go from here?'—the ones we must live by."
Comment by Patricia Clark:
“America Bound rests firmly
in a tradition of dramatic lives rendered through poetry, especially Spoon
River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. David Radavich paints lovely
portraits that fill an American town with rich and moving lives.”
Excerpt from the Review by
Karissa Scott:
"Radavich's poetry resonates with sincerity
and reveals a truth that speaks beyond the page. It is not poetry
confined to the most intellectual of circles where only the greatest artistry
is appreciated, but accessible poetry of profound reflections on our changing
nation . . . . America Bound grows more and more riveting
as you are invested in the characters. In what plays out more like
a novel or play, the characters reach through the pages with their struggles
and humor.
Readers converse with the characters as
Radavich cleverly crafts overlapping stories that place the individual
into perspective with larger-scale worldly issues of war (from World War
II through the war with Iraq), feminism, the Civil Rights movement, and
AIDS. Connections between the different speakers of the poems reveal
an intimate portrait of various walks in tumultuous American life.
The characters are our neighbors, forgotten classmates, and coworkers.
Their conflicts are not aggrandized; their musings reflect our own struggles
and observations . . . . Radavich's poetry matters and speaks to
readers without pretense to show that the personal is, indeed, political."
-- Big Muddy, 2007
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