Transcendencies

By Terrance Oberst

Love of humanity, the environment, from a man who has suffered great indignities, yet, has risen from the ashes and turned his life and love of poetry into some of the finest work Ive published. This book should be read closely by anyone who can relate to those who has been to hell and come back. A truly transcendent spirit pervades this book and Oberst has done himself, his family and friends, and all of us who care about the world a great favor with these poems.
Leonard J. Cirino.
The author of Terrible Wilderness of Self

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481700191

Terrance Oberst

Terrance Oberst received his M.A. degree in Creative Writing from The University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1993. He currently lives in Lincoln, NE where he has taught at a mental health facility the subjects of Creative Writing and Metaphysics, and now facilitates a bi-monthly writing workshop. He has published nearly 60 poems in various magazines, journals, and anthologies, as well as three previous books of poetry. One is a chapbook, Returning (Mulberry Press) in 1994; the other two are full-length collections: the first release of this book, Transcendencies (Pygmy Forest Press) in 2000; and Kinship Patterns (AuthorHouse) in 2004. Greg Kuzma, the Director of Poetry Writing at The University of Nebraska at Lincoln, says, "Terry Oberst has been places in the soul where few of us will ever go." Mr. Oberst has always thought of his poetry as "an Ariadne's thread through the dark labyrinth of the self."

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2013 by Terrance Oberst. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/28/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0020-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-0019-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012923714

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Credits or Acknowledgements

Published in/by

The Periodical of Arts of Nebraska, Alternatives, Pegasus, Plainsongs, Tight, The Cathartic, Mobius, Semi-Dwarf Review, West of Boston, Poetry Motel, Lummox

Original Cover Art by David Benes

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Old Guard

On The Way Home

These Clouds, These Horses

Darwin Was Wrong

The Steppenwolf

Alone

Howl

He Died Of Poetry

Evening

Throughout The Line

The Journey

Transcendencies

Encounter On A New England Bus

Hitchhiking For Jesus

Night

Harpooning Poems

And So I Begin

Coins

The Edge Of Things

Jay

Bob

Death And Company

Gentle Blossomer

Mother

To My Nephew On His Twenty First Birthday

Justin

Conor

David

Fred

Carlo

On The Untimely Death Of A Friend Of My Older Brother’s

On The Death Of My Beloved Uncle

Peter S.J.

On The Wedding Of A

Close Friend’s Daughter

For My Father In His Illness

Death By Fire

The Condemned

Alms

Air Hunger

The Visit

Desert Of Nightmares

FOR LEONARD J. CIRINO

(1943-2012)

il miglior fabbro

LEONARD

   an elegy

and so you are gone now

the creeping malaise of cancer

cutting you down in just five weeks

at 69 you are the greatest poet

I had ever the privilege to know

eschewing the academics in one hand

the confessionalists on the other

every time it was Christmas

you would treat yourself—a gift!

reading The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

Stevens segueing into—no things but in ideas

as opposed to William’s no ideas but in things

tracing it back to the divergent paths

taken by Plato and Aristotle

you loved the translations of foreign poets

to those of your native tongue—

the early to middle Chinese, the French Surrealists,

the Russians during the brutality of Stalin

the Middle Europeans, the Spanish Poets

enduring their