The California Poem

Glorious, expansive, and urgent, this is a new kind of epic poem for the new millennium.

California, hedonistically beautiful and increasingly endangered, is the star of this book-length poem that flies through time, memory, science, history, and imagination, mirroring the topography of the Golden State's landscape and the history of its diverse cultures. Alternating between grand, Whitmanic tone and scope, Dickinsonian minute detail, Beat rhythms, New York School wit, and Objectivist sensibility, Eleni Sikelianos's epic poem engages traditional lyricism with a breathtaking contemporary style and graceful urgency.