Synopses & Reviews
Selected Poems includes over 200 works culled from Robert Lowells books of verseLord Wearys Castle, The Mills of the Kavanaughs, Life Studies, For the Union Dead, Near the Ocean, History, For Lizzie and Harriet, and The Dolphin. Edited and with a foreword by the poet Frank Bidart, who also edited Collected Poems of Robert Lowell, this volume is a perfectly chosen representation of “the greatest American poet of the mid-century” (Richard Poirier, Book Week). Robert Lowell (1917–77) was the renowned and controversial author of many books of poetry, including For the Union Dead (1964) and Life Studies (1959), both published by FSG, which also published his Collected Poems in 2003. Selected Poems includes over two hundred works culled from Robert Lowell's books of verseLord Weary's Castle, The Mills of the Kavanaughs, Life Studies, For the Union Dead, Near the Ocean, History, For Lizzie and Harriet, and The Dolphin. Edited and with a foreword by the poet Frank Bidart, who also edited Collected Poems of Robert Lowell, this revised and expanded edition is a chosen representation of "the greatest American poet of the mid-century" (Richard Poirier, Book Week). Edited and with a foreword by the poet Frank Bidart, this revised and expanded edition of over two hundred works culled from Lowell's book of verse is a chosen representation of "the greatest American poet of the mid-century" (Richard Poirier, Book Week). "The concise but passionate prose of Frank Bidart's brief introductory essay argues that Lowell is more than the upper-crust Yankee his cultural references can make him seem to be. Lowell's confessional frankness and personal subject matter don't merely make a self-serving self-portrait; as Bidart writes, 'Robert Lowell was a transgressive artisthis art again and again broke taboos, both thematic and formal. If what you're looking for from your poetry is redemption and honesty in a distinctively American key, you won't find it in denser form anywhere else, Lowell asks elemental questions about memory, family, America and art, and his intimacy distills a compassion for all."Katie Peterson, Chicago Tribune "Selected Poems [has] resuscitated conversation about one of the most stylish and ambitious poets of the 20th century. The features that make Lowell exciting to readtechnical brilliance, as well as the instinct to deviate from it; a persuasive, public, rhetorical voice; dark interiorityare all on display in Selected Poems. What is also here, which Lowell excluded from the earlier Selected, is '91 Revere Street,' a remarkable prose memoir that demonstrates just how clear he was capable of being about his life."Los Angeles Times “Selected Poems demonstrates with unequivocal clarity that Robert Lowells poems, not the least bit dated, remain as stunning and impressive now as they seemed back then, when they took American poetry by storm six decades ago.”Steve Kowit, The San Diego Union-Tribune "This selectiona much-expanded version by Bidart of Lowell's own late-life cullingbrings the Herculean effort of restoring Lowell's oeuvre to print and prominence near completion. Next to the colossal Collected Poems, this is a formidable book in its own right, offering a distilled view of the arc of Lowell's whole career and of each of his individual books. From the early formal triumphs of Lord Weary's Castle and The Mills of the Kavanaughs to the seminal Life Studies (which is presented here in its entirety and includes what may be Lowell's most overarching characterization of his work: 'I myself am hell'); from the tense and arguably unscrupulous sonnets of History and For Lizzie and Harriet to the dark resolve of The Dolphin and Day by Day: all of Lowell's varied modes are generously represented, along with Bidart's notes from Collected Poems. This book finally makes the breadth of Lowell's great achievement accessible in a single, portable volume."Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
"By far the most famous poet of his era . . . Lowell transformed American poetry." --Charles McGrath,
The New York Times Magazine
"Robert Lowell was one of the three or four greatest American poets of the twentieth century . . . his real peers are the classics of American literature: Melville and Whitman, Eliot and Frost . . . Lowell's torrential eloquence, his historical consciousness, his moral and political seriousness are a standing challenge." --Adam Kirsch, The Times Literary Supplement
"Lowell's genius and his grinding labor brought to verse in English not only technical mastery on a scale otherwise scarcely attempted in [the twentieth] century, but then his courage and honesty brought ... a new generosity and dignity to the whole enterprise of poetry." --John Thompson, The New York Review of Books
"The best American poet of his generation." --Time
"The subjects of these poems will eventually become extinct, like all other natural species devoured by time, but the indelible mark of their impression on a single sensibility will remain, in Lowell's votive sculpture, bronzed to imperishability." --Helen Vendler, The Atlantic Monthly
Synopsis
Selected Poems includes over 200 works culled from Robert Lowell's books of verse--Lord Weary's Castle, The Mills of the Kavanaughs, Life Studies, For the Union Dead, Near the Ocean, History, For Lizzie and Harriet, and The Dolphin. Edited and with a foreword by the poet Frank Bidart, who also edited Collected Poems of Robert Lowell, this volume is a perfectly chosen representation of "the greatest American poet of the mid-century" (Richard Poirier, Book Week).
About the Author
Robert Lowell (1917-77) was the renowned and controversial author of many books of poetry, including
For the Union Dead (1964) and
Life Studies (1959), both published by FSG, which also published his
Collected Poems in 2003.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Frank Bidart
From Lord Weary's Castle (1946)The Exile's Return
The Holy Innocents
Colloquy in Black Rock
The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket
In Memory of Arthur Winslow (Death from Cancer)
Mary Winslow
The Drunken Fisherman
Between the Porch and the Altar
The Ghost
In the Cage
At the Indian Killer's Grave
Mr. Edwards and the Spider
After the Surprising Conversions
The Death of the Sheriff (Noli Me Tangere)
Where the Rainbow Ends From The Mills of the Kavanaughs (1951)The Mills of the Kavanaughs
Falling Asleep over the Aeneid
Her Dead Brother " 41
Mother Marie Therese
The Fat Man in the Mirror
Thanksgiving's Over
Life Studies (1959)Part One
Beyond the Alps
The Banker's Daughter
Inauguration Day: January 1953
Mad Negro Soldier Confined at MunichPart Two
91 Revere StreetPart Three
Ford Madox Ford
For George Santayana
To Delmore Schwartz
Words for HartPart Four: LIFE STUDIES
I.
My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereux Winslow
Dunbarton
Grandparents
Commander Lowell
Terminal Days at Beverly Farms
Father's Bedroom
For Sale
Sailing Home from Rapallo
During Fever
Waking in the Blue
Home After Three Months Away
II.
Memories of West Street and Lepke
Man and Wife
"To Speak of Woe That Is in Marriage"
Skunk Hour
From For the Union Dead (1964)
Water
The Old Flame
Middle Age
The Mouth of the Hudson
Fall 1961
Florence
Eye and Tooth
Alfred Corning Clark
Child's Song
The Public Garden
Going to and fro
Myopia: a Night
The Drinker
Hawthorne
Jonathan Edwards in Western Massachusetts
Tenth Muse
The Neo-Classical Urn
Caligula
July in Washington
Buenos Aires
Soft Wood
New York 1962: Fragment
The Flaw
Night Sweat
For the Union Dead
From Near the Ocean (1967)
Near the Ocean
1. Waking Early Sunday Morning
2. Fourth of July in Maine "
3. The Opposite House
4. Central Park
5. Near the Ocean
From History (1973)
History
Man and Woman
Alexander
Death of Alexander
Hannibal I. Roman Disaster at the Trebia
Marcus Cato 234-149 B.C.
Marcus Cato 95-46 B.C.
Cicero, the Sacrificial Killing
Nunc est bibendum, Cleopatra's Death
Juvenal's Prayer
Attila, Hitler
Mohammed
Death of Count Roland
Joinville and Louis IX
Dante 3. Buonconte
Dames du Temps Jadis
Coleridge and Richard II
Bosworth Field
Sir Thomas More
Anne Boleyn
Death of Anne Boleyn
Charles V by Titian
Marlowe
Mary Smart
Rembrandt
The Worst Sinner, Jonathan Edwards' God
Watchmaker God
Robespierre and Mozart as Stage
Saint-Just 1767-93
Napoleon
Waterloo
Beethoven
Coleridge
The Lost Tune
Margaret Fuller Drowned
Abraham Lincoln
Verdun
Dream of Fair Ladies
Serpent
Words
Sunrise
Randall Jarrell I. October 1965
Randall Jarrell 2
Randall Jarrell 3
T. S. Eliot
Ezra Pound
William Carlos Williams
Robert Frost
Stalin
Caracas
The March I
The March 2
Worse Times
Ulysses
Fever
Two Walls
For Robert Kennedy 1925-68
For Eugene McCarthy
Publication Day
Lévi-Strauss in London
The Nihilist as Hero
Reading Myself
For Elizabeth Bishop 4
Death and the Bridge
Ice
End of a Year
From For Lizzie and Harriet (1973)
Part One
Harriet, born January 4,1957
Harriet
Elizabeth
These Winds (Harriet)
HarrietPart Two
Snake
Christmas Tree
Dear Sorrow
Harriet's Dream
Left Out of Vacation
Das Ewig Weibliche
Our Twentieth Wedding Anniversary (Elizabeth)
The Hard Way (Harriet)
Words for Muffin, a Guinea-Pig
End of Camp Alamoosook (Harriet)
Bringing a Turtle Home
Returning Turtle
Growth (Harriet)
The Graduate (Elizabeth)
Long Summer
No Hearing
No Hearing
Outlivers (Harriet and Elizabeth)
My Heavenly Shiner (Elizabeth)
It Did (Elizabeth)
Seals
Obit
From The Dolphin (1973)
Fishnet
Window
The Serpent
Symptoms
Voices
3ld Snapshot from Venice 1952
Fall Weekend at Milgate
Mermaid
In the Mail
Flounder
Exorcism
Plotted
The Couple
Artist's Model
Mermaid Emerging
Angling
Leaf-Lace Dress
Late Summer at Milgate
Robert Sheridan Lowell
Careless Night
Wildrose
Ivana
Lost Fish
Sick
Plane-Ticket
Christmas
Christmas
Dolphin
From Selected Poems (1976)
NINETEEN THIRTIES
First Things
First Love
1930's
Searching
1930's
1930's
1930's
Bobby Delano
1930's
Long Summers
Long Summers
Long Summers
1930's
1930's
Anne Dick 1.1936
Anne Dick 2. 1936
Father
Mother and Father 1
Mother and Father 2
Returning
Mother, 1972
Father in a Dream
Tb Daddy
Will Not Come Back " 284MEXICO
Mexico (1, 3-10)
Eight Months Later
i. Eight Months Later " 292
2. Die Gold-Orangen " 292
From Day by Day (1977)
Ulysses and Circe
Our Afterlife 1
For John Berryman
Square of Black
In the Ward
DAY BY DAY
from Part I
The Day
Domesday Book
Marriage
from Part II
Robert T. S. Lowell
For Sheridan
Grass Fires
St. Mark's, 1933
Suburban Surf
from Part III
Ten Minutes
Notice
Shifting Colors
Unwanted
The Downlook
Thanks-Offering for Recovery
Epilogue
From Last Poems (1977)
Summer Tides
Notes
Chronology
Index of Titles
Index of First Lines