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With grim humor and humorous grimness, In Search of the Great Dead engages the great themes of poetry: death and fame. The title poem of this collection records Richard Cecils quest for the tombs of the famous dead. At first the search leads him on a tour of famous European tombstonesthe grave of Chateaubriand in St. Malo, the shared tomb of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Pere-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, Yeatss old Celtic cross in Sligobut gradually it expands into areas where all the tombs have been erased by time or vandalismthe tombs of Seneca and Lucan, and all of the great dead poets whose names have been lost. These once famous, now unknown poets lead Cecil to consider those graveyards full of anonymous deadthe civil war soldiers buried under tiny stones with numbers instead of names inscribed on them. Are they more anonymous than the once famous, now forgotten great dead? Though Cecil is wryly aware of his own obscurity, his poems are strangely optimistic and life-affirming. His reply to Emily Dickinsons question: Im Nobodyare you / Nobody, too? is an enthusiastic yes! In Search of the Great Dead conveys the joy of being Nobody and the shy, almost buried hope that someday (after death), he might become Somebody.
