Civil Twilight: Poems

By Jeffrey Schultz

From a two-time winner of the National Poetry Series competition, a bold new collection of poems lamenting the state of the world—and offering poetry that might save it

“Civil twilight” occurs just before dawn and just after dusk, when there is still light enough to distinguish the shapes and contours of objects but not the richness of their detail.

Beginning with the idea that nothing can be seen clearly in the light of the present, the poems in Civil Twilight attempt to resuscitate lyric’s revelatory impulse by taking nothing for granted, forming their materials under the light of a critical gaze. If there is any chance left for a humane world, a world in which poetry might become as transparent and evocative as it has always longed to be, these poems desire nothing but to find hints of that chance, and to follow them as far as they might lead.

Jeffrey Schultz brings his distinct voice to bear on the stuff of twenty-first-century America—languishing FOIA requests, graffiti-covered city walls, the violent machinery of the state—without abandoning hope that the language of poetry might transport us to some better and as-yet-unimaginable world. Turning a call to be “civil” on its head, this collection nudges the reader toward revolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9780062678997

Book preview

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Rendering poetry in a digital format presents several challenges, just as its many forms continue to challenge the conventions of print. In print, however, a poem takes place within the static confines of a page, hewing as close as possible to the poet’s intent, whether it’s Walt Whitman’s lines stretching to the margin like Route 66, or Robert Creeley’s lines descending the page like a string tie. The printed poem has a physical shape, one defined by the negative space that surrounds it—a space that is crafted by the broken lines of the poem. The line, as vital a formal and critical component of the form of a poem as metaphor, creates rhythm, timing, proportion, drama, meaning, tension, and so on.

Reading poetry on a small device will not always deliver line breaks as the poet intended—with the pressure the horizontal line brings to a poem, rather than the completion of the grammatical unit. The line, intended as a formal and critical component of the form of the poem, has been corrupted by breaking it where it was not meant to break, interrupting a number of important elements of the poetic structure—rhythm, timing, proportion, drama, meaning, and so on. It’s a little like a tightrope walker running out of rope before reaching the other side.

There are limits to what can be done with long lines on digital screens. At some point, a line must break. If it has to break more than once or twice, it is no longer a poetic line, with the integrity that lineation demands. On smaller devices with enlarged type, a line break may not appear where its author intended, interrupting the unit of the line and its importance in the poem’s structure.

We attempt to accommodate long lines with a hanging indent—similar in fashion to the way Whitman’s lines were treated in books whose margins could not honor his discursive length. On your screen, a long line will break according to the space available, with the remainder of the line wrapping at an indent. This allows readers to retain control over the appearance of text on any device, while also indicating where the author intended the line to break.

This may not be a perfect solution, as some readers initially may be confused. We have to accept, however, that we are creating poetry e-books in a world that is imperfect for them—and we understand that to some degree the line may be compromised. Despite this, we’ve attempted to protect the integrity of the line, thus allowing readers of poetry to travel fully stocked with the poetry that needs to be with them.

—Dan Halpern, Publisher

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Publisher’s Note

Acknowledgments

Stare Decisis et Non Quieta Movere

Habeas Corpus

Civil Twilight

Deleted Scene

Offering of Two Burning Calves

Sort of Like, Um, the Falcon & the Falconer or Whatever, but Sort of Not

Resolution in Loving Memory of Sky & Gooseflesh

& Plays It One More Time, with Feeling, in the Rotating Piano Bar atop the Grand Hotel Abyss

Notes

About the Author

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the editors and staffs of the following publications, in which some of the poems from this collection originally appeared, sometimes in slightly different form:

Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day: Habeas Corpus

TriQuarterly: Civil Twilight

Southern Indiana Review: Offering of Two Burning Calves

Selections from Resolution in Loving Memory of Sky & Gooseflesh appeared in Fogged Clarity, and Habeas Corpus was anthologized in The Manifesto Project.

Thanks to David St. John, Beth Dial, Daniel Halpern, and the National Poetry Series, and to Bridget Read and everyone at Ecco and HarperCollins.

For their support, guidance, and friendship, thanks to my family, to Chuck and Dianne Hanzlicek, Peter Everwine, Connie and John Hales, Dixie Salazar and Jon Veinberg, Franny Levine, Pimone Triplett, James Leveque, Allison Perkins, Cyndy Holder, Adam Van Arsdale and Hélène Bilis, Giri Iyengar, Lorie Goodman and Bob Cook, Jonas Lerman and Kristin Mjolsnes, Jane Rodeheffer, Maire Mullins, Michael Ditmore, F. Douglas Brown, Marty Williams, Carlos Ramírez, and Genny Moore.

Thanks to all my wonderful students, most especially Matthew Jones, Rachal Marquez, Levi Osburn, Alex Free, Ben Keoseyan, and Kami Bates, for humoring and enabling me.

For reading versions of these poems in progress and for their tremendous encouragement, solidarity, and comradeship, thanks to Anna Tullis, Ben Evans, Jordan Straubel, Aaron Schott, Joel Wood, Brian Simoneau, and Isaac Randel. Special thanks in this regard to Joshua Robbins, Megan Levad, Alana Grambush, Hillary Eaton, Garrett Hongo, Haley Laningham, and George Kovalenko.

For her absolutely unwavering support and for her unerring eye and ear and heart and mind, as well as for putting up with me from day to day, thanks most of all to Leah Hanzlicek, to whom this book would be dedicated, would such a dedication not