Details

Series

• James Dickey contemporary poetry series. [More in this series]
• The James Dickey contemporary poetry series

Summary note

In Traveling in Notions Michael J. Rosen creates a novel in poems, a questing contemplation, an alter ego, Gordon Penn, who holds to hopefulness amid circumstances that will have none of it. Penn is a widower, a soon-to-retire notions salesman, a midwestern family man - a man akin to Italo Calvino's optimistic Marcovaldo or a character who might inhabit a story by John Cheever or John Updike. Each poem in the collection relates an episode in Penn's ongoing confrontation with contemporary society.

Contents

• A Note on Michael J. Rosen
• Penn's Orchard
• Traveling in Notions
• Voting at His Old Elementary
• Catching Himself Aware
• Penn Tries Another Cryptoquote
• The Golden Goat
• The Measure of Life
• Penn's Abacus
• Penn's Relations
• Penn Consults the Magic Eight Ball
• Penn Concedes His Territories
• Guardian
• Expressions in Cement
• Watercolors
• The Least That Penn Can Do
• What Penn Overhears at the Health Club
• A Story of Gordon and Sylvie, with Accompaniments
• Penn's Would-Be 35th Anniversary
• A Sudden Upset
• A Tough Act to Follow
• "Gordon Penn Is A Winner!"
• Standing His Ground
• Penn's Rescue
• Penn, the Archivist
• Penn's Findings (However Inconclusive)
• Penn Goes the Distance
• Penn's Acceptance Speech.

Show 25 more Contents items

ISBN

• 1570031568 (cloth)
• 1570031576 (paper)

LCCN

96025391

OCLC

35183889

RCP

C - O

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