Keep This Forever

$19.95

by Mark Halliday

In this, his fifth book of poems, written in the aftermath of his father’s death, Mark Halliday proves to be one of America’s most intimate poets. Like Frank O’Hara and Kenneth Koch, Halliday’s poems chat with the reader in earnest yet humorous ways and in wholly believable voices. Whether exploring grief or desire or loneliness, these poems never forget the human longing for permanence.

by Mark Halliday

In this, his fifth book of poems, written in the aftermath of his father’s death, Mark Halliday proves to be one of America’s most intimate poets. Like Frank O’Hara and Kenneth Koch, Halliday’s poems chat with the reader in earnest yet humorous ways and in wholly believable voices. Whether exploring grief or desire or loneliness, these poems never forget the human longing for permanence.

About the Author

Mark Halliday was born in Ann Arbor, MI and grew up in Raleigh, NC and Westport, CT. He earned a BA at Brown University in 1971, an MA in creative writing at Brown, and a Ph.D. in English at Brandeis University. He has taught at Wellesley College, the University of Pennsylvania, Wilmington Friends School, Indiana University, Western Michigan University, and Ohio University, where he has been since 1996.

His previous books of poems are: Little Star (William Morrow, 1987, a National Poetry Series selection); Tasker Street (University of Massachusetts Press, 1992, a Juniper Prize winner); Selfwolf (University of Chicago Press, 1999); and Jab (University of Chicago Press, 2002). His critical study Stevens and the Interpersonal was published by Princeton University Press in 1991. He co-authored with Allen Grossman a book on poetics, The Sighted Singer (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), and he has published many essays on contemporary poets.

Advanced Praise

“He is prolix and quotidian, a Whitman in a supermarket, a confessional poet who does not take himself very seriously. His cool patter skewers pomposity.” —The New Yorker

“Mark Halliday veers skillfully between autobiographical reminiscence and bleakly comic free-associations.” —Publisher’s Weekly

Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-932195-72-9