First Aid
Ebook
First Aid dresses wounds inflicted in a world of "same," self-absorption, and the death of the literary. It marks out what has been lost and explores alternative ways for Homo sapiens. The title also refers to the Percival myth where the wound carries the cure. Think Schiller's play drive. Think a bridge over romanticism, modernism, and postmodernism.
“Each poem in First Aid is a clean, confident vector of thought from start to finish. Rich Murphy distills associational webs of thought into seamless, purposeful poetic machines—the craft of a master.”
—Christopher Fields, editor, Neologism Poetry Journal
“It’s extraordinary that among the most familiar of situations he should find means to heal and hearten whilst at once laying bare the awful behind the ordinary, the things that, by our breathing, bruise, burn, and bleed us—and all this unaided by the crutch and tinsel of pretension.”
—Alexander P. Harwood, editor, Lit. 202
“A Rich Murphy poem comes like visceral haze only to leave like a burning shot of whisky. First Aid shows Murphy at his enigmatic best, showcasing powerful oneiric verse.”
—Nathan Nicolau, founder and editor-in-chief, New Note Poetry
“First Aid is Rich Murphy’s twelfth book-length collection of poems that interrogates the perils of surviving half-lived lives in a consumerist society. The genius of consumerist culture is that it enforces a kind of myopia that supports it, preventing us from noticing the steady retreat of our humanity from the noisome culture around us. Murphy’s particular genius is his ability to see the connections, the invidious logic of this culture. But this collection marks an important change in his oeuvre; his gaze has shifted towards a Stevens-like recentering, a refocus around his own pressing humanity. First Aid is, I believe, Murphy’s strongest work in a decade or more.”
—Robert Smart, professor emeritus of English, Quinnipiac University
- Title: First Aid
- Author: Rich Murphy
- Publisher: Resource Publications
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781666776744, 9781666776720, 1666776726, 9781666776737, 1666776734, 1666776742
- Resource ID: LLS:9781666776744
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2023-06-15T21:41:51Z
Rich Murphy was born and raised in Lynn, Massachusetts. He is a graduate of Boston University’s graduate program in creative writing, studying under George Starbuck and Derek Walcott, and remains in Massachusetts with his longtime life partner. His four children reside in the Northeast.