Beethoven in Denver and Other Poems: Poems

In Beethoven in Denver and Other Poems, Burton Raffel brings a lifetime of artistry to an enchanting and visionary story, followed by a sequence of jewel-like lyrics. In the title poem, set during Raffel's time as a Professor of English at Denver Univeristy, Beethoven returns from the dead and moves in with Raffel for extended conversations on music, politics, women, history, chocolate, mountains, love and God. According to the narrator, the composer returns because "Beethoven would risk anything," but it is Raffel who has dared to imagine this magical, whimsical and inspired dialogue, forging anew the character of Romantic inspiration. Over the course of the poem, Beethoven emerges as both ordinary adn supernatural, naive yet eternal, vulgar and divine. Filled both with creative joy and the acknowledment of death, Beethoven in Denver and Other Poems stands as a major and mature work by one of the gifted poets of our time.