The Unpleasant Subject

Poetry. “Everybody has the right to deal with the subject . . . if it is in the direction of our anguish and does not disarm it”-Elie Wiesel. Based on comparative, almost compulsive reading and deep reflection, this long series of poems is an attempt to comprehend the great dark evil that was Hitlerzeit. Eschewing factual embellishment and emotional excess, Thorpe’s precise and controlled poetry confronts the man Hitler and his time that altered history and our notion of ourselves and casts a shadow even into our age. “His poems are solid, rough-hewn, with jagged edges-a sculptural quality that matches his uncompromising human vision”-Canadian Literature. Thorpe is the author of eight other volumes of poetry and several works of criticism.