The Invention of Influence

Peter Cole

Cole writes beautifully about the intricacies of the world that we see and the one we imagine and connect our thoughts to—‘He turns the wind into his messenger.’ Surrendered to the mystical, grounded in the physical, the poems arrive at their appointed time.

Library Journal

The Invention of Influence

Poetry by Peter Cole

With a contribution by Harold Bloom

Peter Cole has been called “an inspired writer” (The Nation) and “one of the handful of authentic poets of his own American generation” (Harold Bloom). In this, his fourth book of poems, he presents a ramifying vision of human linkage. At the heart of the collection stands the stunning title poem, which brings us into the world of Victor Tausk, a maverick and tragic early disciple of Freud who wrote about one of his patients’ mental inventions — an “influence machine” that controlled his thoughts. In Cole’s symphonic poem, this machine becomes a haunting image for the ways in which tradition and the language of others shape so much of what we think and say. The shorter poems in this rich and surprising volume treat the dynamics of coupling, the curiously varied nature of perfection, the delights of the senses, the perils of poetic vocation, and more.

Paperback(published Jan, 29 2014)

ISBN
9780811221726
Price US
16.95
Price CN
18
Page Count
128
Portrait of Peter Cole

Peter Cole

Contemporary American poet and translator of Hebrew.

Cole writes beautifully about the intricacies of the world that we see and the one we imagine and connect our thoughts to—‘He turns the wind into his messenger.’ Surrendered to the mystical, grounded in the physical, the poems arrive at their appointed time.

Library Journal

Cole almost always writes beautifully…. His work never lapses in the warmth of its humanity, whether he is anchoring a concise elliptical narrative with excerpts from historical documents or infusing an ancillary set of images with complex music.

Daniel Bosch, Berfrois

Cole is a dexterous writer… The Invention of Influence is skillful with history and lovely with ordinary life: a wonderful book.

Bookslut

Masterful…. Deeply allusive, profound, committed verse.

Booklist

A dazzling new book by a writer with “perhaps the most capacious command of the Jewish poetic tradition of any poet now writing in English.

Religion and Literature

The Invention of Influence retains tangible traces of [Cole’s] work as a translator of the poetry of Hebrew mystics. These poems extend the mystics’ project, seeking the spiritual self and finding it, quite often, in the threshold between ‘world’ and ‘word.’

*Publishers Weekly *

The Invention of Influence surpasses all previous Cole and confirms his standing as one of the most vital poets of his generation.

Harold Bloom, Tablet Magazine