{"product_id":"west-portal-9781647690403","title":"West Portal","description":"Winner of the 2020 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eWest Portal\u003c\/i\u003e is the name of the neighborhood in San Francisco, California, where poet Benjamin Gucciardi grew up. It is also one of the names of the Pillars of Heracles--the entryway to the afterworld. Drawing on William Carlos Williams's assertion that \"the local is the only thing that is universal,\" \u003ci\u003eWest Portal \u003c\/i\u003einvestigates the Bay Area's urban and rural landscapes along with the memories and people that reside there. Interweaving the narrative of the death of the poet's sister with the environmental and socioeconomic realities of the current moment, the poems in \u003ci\u003eWest Portal\u003c\/i\u003e illuminate the experience of loss, and the attempt to create meaning in the wake of devastation. Through poems that are prayerful, observant, elegiac, pained, dreamlike, philosophical, and compassionate, the book asks: What do we consider holy? What is virtue? What should any of us value about our relationship to place or our relationship with each other?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBenjamin Gucciardi'\u003c\/b\u003es first book, \u003ci\u003eWest Portal, \u003c\/i\u003e (University of Utah Press, 2021), was selected by Gabrielle Calvocoressi for the Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry and was named a finalist for the Northern California Book Award and the Julie Suk Award. He is also the author of the chapbooks \u003ci\u003eTimeless Tips for Simple Sabotage\u003c\/i\u003e (Quarterly West, 2021), winner of the 2020 \u003ci\u003eQuarterly West\u003c\/i\u003e Chapbook contest, and \u003ci\u003eI Ask My Sister's Ghost \u003c\/i\u003e(DIAGRAM\/New Michigan Press, 2020). His poems appear in \u003ci\u003eAGNI, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, POETRY Magazine \u003c\/i\u003eand elsewhere.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Utah Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50645732786450,"sku":"9781647690403","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_2ec24033-2ca2-4b70-8df5-1573325476c4.jpg?v=1733160979","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/west-portal-9781647690403","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}