David R. Slavitt is a poet, novelist, story writer, essayist, editor, and translator who has published more than seventy books. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has taught at Temple University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Bennington College.

"Rare among contemporary poets.... A poet who knows how to have fun with language, [Slavitt] fairly revels in the play of words as he ranges far and wide in subject matter, approach, tone, and form." - America; A body betrays, and even a mind can rebel, but against what? What remains? Slowly but surely, we are forced to suppose a soul, which serves us well, while we serve it unfaithfully and impurely. Infinitely regressive? Or merely shy? Call it what watches, suffers, and remains our subject/object, despite whatever pains we may impose upon it, an inner I. Or is it a mere fiction that one may admit as useful or even necessary? Its truth is theoretical, a series, a trend, almost algebralc: and one conjures it from the motes that fly in the thin air of his youth to create the granite block that marks his end. - "Soul"

David R. Slavitt is a poet, novelist, story writer, essayist, editor, and translator who has published more than seventy books. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has taught at Temple University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Bennington College.

"Rare among contemporary poets.... A poet who knows how to have fun with language, [Slavitt] fairly revels in the play of words as he ranges far and wide in subject matter, approach, tone, and form." - America; A body betrays, and even a mind can rebel, but against what? What remains? Slowly but surely, we are forced to suppose a soul, which serves us well, while we serve it unfaithfully and impurely. Infinitely regressive? Or merely shy? Call it what watches, suffers, and remains our subject/object, despite whatever pains we may impose upon it, an inner I. Or is it a mere fiction that one may admit as useful or even necessary? Its truth is theoretical, a series, a trend, almost algebralc: and one conjures it from the motes that fly in the thin air of his youth to create the granite block that marks his end. - "Soul"

David R. Slavitt is a poet, novelist, story writer, essayist, editor, and translator who has published more than seventy books. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and has taught at Temple University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Bennington College.

"Rare among contemporary poets.... A poet who knows how to have fun with language, [Slavitt] fairly revels in the play of words as he ranges far and wide in subject matter, approach, tone, and form." - America; A body betrays, and even a mind can rebel, but against what? What remains? Slowly but surely, we are forced to suppose a soul, which serves us well, while we serve it unfaithfully and impurely. Infinitely regressive? Or merely shy? Call it what watches, suffers, and remains our subject/object, despite whatever pains we may impose upon it, an inner I. Or is it a mere fiction that one may admit as useful or even necessary? Its truth is theoretical, a series, a trend, almost algebralc: and one conjures it from the motes that fly in the thin air of his youth to create the granite block that marks his end. - "Soul"