Amer Poetry: The 20th Century, vol 2: E.E. Cumming to May Swenson

by Library of America

• ISBN13: 9781883011789
• ISBN10: 1883011787
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Library of America

Summary

Contains over 1500 poems by more than 200 well-known American poets, including Langston Hughes, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, and Wallace Stevens.

Table of Contents

E.E. Cummings (1894--1962)
``All in green went my love riding,''	1	(1)
``in Just- / spring when the world is mud-,''	2	(1)
``Tumbling-hair / picker of buttercups,''	3	(1)
``Humanity i love you,''	3	(1)
``O sweet spontaneous,''	4	(1)
``stinging / gold swarms,''	5	(1)
``between green / mountains,''	6	(1)
``Babylon slim / -ness of,''	6	(1)
``ta / ppin / g / toe,''	7	(1)
``Buffalo Bill's / defunct,''	7	(1)
``the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls,''	8	(1)
``god pity me whom(god-distinctly has),''	8	(1)
``Dick Mid's large bluish face without eyebrows,''	9	(1)
``Spring is like a perhaps hand,''	9	(1)
Poem, or Beauty Hurts Mr. Vinal	10	(2)
``she being Brand,''	12	(1)
``on the Madam's best april the,''	13	(1)
Memorabilia	14	(1)
``next to of course god america i,''	15	(1)
``lis / -ten / / you know what i mean when,''	15	(1)
``my sweet old etcetera,''	16	(1)
``Among / these / red pieces of,''	17	(1)
``in spite of everything,''	18	(1)
``since feeling is first,''	18	(1)
``i sing of Olaf glad and big,''	18	(2)
``twi-/is -Light bird,''	20	(1)
``a clown's smirk in the skull of a baboon,''	20	(1)
``somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond,''	21	(1)
``r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r,''	22	(1)
``the boys i mean are not refined,''	22	(1)
``as freedom is a breakfastfood,''	23	(1)
``anyone lived in a pretty how town,''	24	(1)
``my father moved through dooms of love,''	25	(2)
``plato told,''	27	(1)
``pity this busy monster, manunkind,''	28	(1)
``a grin without a,''	29	(1)
H. L. Davis (1894--1960)
Proud Riders	30	(1)
Rolfe Humphries (1894--1969)
Europa	31	(1)
Test Paper	32	(1)
From the Green Book of Yfan	33	(2)
Eugene Jolas (1894--1952)
Mater Dolorosa	35	(1)
H. Phelps Putnam (1894--1948)
Words of an Old Woman	36	(1)
Hasbrouck and the Rose	37	(2)
Bill Gets Burned	39	(3)
Charles Reznikoff (1894--1976)
``On Brooklyn Bridge I saw a man drop dead,''	42	(1)
``I met in a merchant's place,''	42	(1)
``The shopgirls leave their work,''	42	(1)
``How shall we mourn you who are killed and wasted,''	42	(1)
``My work done, I lean on the window-sill,''	43	(1)
``In the shop, she, her mother, and grandmother,''	43	(1)
The Idiot	43	(1)
``She who worked patiently,''	43	(1)
Epidemic	43	(1)
``Her work was to count linings---,''	43	(1)
``The house-wreckers have left the door and a staircase,''	44	(1)
Aphrodite Vrania	44	(1)
April	44	(1)
``Out of the hills the trees bulge,''	44	(1)
``How difficult for me is Hebrew,''	44	(1)
``I have learnt the Hebrew blessing before eating bread,''	44	(1)
``After I had worked all day at what I earn my living,''	44	(1)
``The Hebrew of your poets, Zion,''	45	(1)
``Though our thoughts often, we ourselves,''	45	(1)
``Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies,''	45	(1)
Epitaphs	45	(1)
Millinery District [``The clouds...'']	46	(1)
``A dead gull in the road,''	47	(1)
``I like this secret walking,''	47	(1)
Rainy Season	47	(1)
``Of course, we must die,''	48	(1)
My grandfather, dead long before I was born,''	48	(1)
``A grove of small trees, branches thick with berries,''	48	(1)
Millinery District [``Many fair hours...'']	48	(1)
Similes	49	(1)
Epitaph	49	(1)
Free Verse	49	(1)
from Early History of a Writer	50	(7)
Bessie Smith (1894--1937)
Empty Bed Blues	57	(2)
Genevieve Taggard (1894--1948)
Everyday Alchemy	59	(1)
Thirst	59	(1)
To One Loved Wholly Within Wisdom	59	(1)
To Mr. Maunder Maunder, Professional Poet	60	(1)
To the Powers of Desolation	61	(1)
To the Natural World: at 37	61	(1)
Try Tropic	62	(1)
All Around the Town	63	(1)
Bounding Line	64	(1)
Hymn to Yellow	64	(1)
The Weed	65	(1)
Fructus	66	(2)
Jean Toomer (1894--1967)
Reapers	68	(1)
Cotton Song	68	(1)
Georgia Dusk	69	(1)
Nullo	70	(1)
Evening Song	70	(1)
Portrait in Georgia	71	(1)
Seventh Street	71	(1)
Storm Ending	72	(1)
Her Lips Are Copper Wire	72	(1)
Gum	73	(1)
The Gods Are Here	74	(1)
Mark Van Doren (1894--1972)
This Amber Sunstream	75	(1)
Axle Song	75	(1)
The Near House	76	(1)
Midland	77	(1)
So Simple	77	(1)
Where I Saw the Snake	77	(1)
The First Poem	78	(1)
Alter Brody (1895--1979)
Lamentations	79	(1)
Winter Nocturne: The Hospital	80	(1)
Babette Deutsch (1895--1982)
``To an Amiable Child,''	81	(1)
Creatures in the Zoo	82	(2)
Abraham Lincoln Gillespie (1895--1950)
A Purplexicon of Dissynthegrations	84	(3)
Oscar Hammerstein II (1895--1960)
Ol' Man River	87	(2)
Lorenz Hart (1895--1943)
Little Girl Blue	89	(1)
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered	90	(2)
Robert Hillyer (1895--1961)
Dead Man's Corner	92	(1)
Edmund Wilson (1895--1972)
Epitaphs	93	(1)
A House of the Eighties	94	(1)
The Omelet of A. MacLeish	95	(4)
John Dos Passos (1896--1970)
Newsreel LIII	99	(2)
Thomas Hornsby Ferril (1896--1988)
Waltz Against the Mountains	101	(3)
Something Starting Over	104	(2)
Noon	106	(1)
Ira Gershwin (1896--1983)
I Can't Get Started	107	(2)
They All Laughed	109	(2)
Ramon Guthrie (1896--1973)
Elegy for Melusine from the Intensive Care Ward	111	(2)
Red-Headed Intern, Taking Notes	113	(1)
Scene: A Bedside in the Witches' Kitchen	113	(2)
E. Y. Harburg (1896--1981)
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?	115	(2)
Isidor Schneider (1896--1977)
Insects	117	(1)
A History of the Caesars	117	(2)
Louise Bogan (1897--1970)
Medusa	119	(1)
Knowledge	120	(1)
Women	120	(1)
The Alchemist	121	(1)
My Voice Not Being Proud	121	(1)
Men Loved Wholly Beyond Wisdom	122	(1)
Sub Contra	122	(1)
Cassandra	123	(1)
Winter Swan	123	(1)
Dark Summer	123	(1)
Late	124	(1)
Song	124	(1)
Short Summary	125	(1)
Roman Fountain	125	(1)
Evening-Star	126	(1)
Baroque Comment	126	(1)
Kept	127	(1)
Heard by a Girl	127	(1)
Several Voices Out of a Cloud	128	(1)
Musician	128	(1)
Zone	129	(1)
Night	129	(1)
Morning	130	(1)
The Dragonfly	131	(1)
Emanuel Carnevali (1897--1942?)
Sermon	132	(1)
Serenade	132	(1)
Kiss	133	(1)
Almost a God	134	(1)
Blind Lemon Jefferson (1897--1929)
Long Distance Moan	135	(2)
Walter Lowenfels (1897--1976)
from Elegy in the Manner of a Requiem in Memory of D. H. Lawrence	137	(3)
David McCord (1897--1997)
Waiter	140	(1)
History of Education	140	(1)
John Wheelwright (1897--1940)
Slow Curtain	141	(1)
Why Must You Know?	141	(1)
Would You Think?	142	(1)
Fish Food: An Obituary to Hart Crane	143	(1)
Come Over and Help Us	144	(3)
Anathema. Maranatha!	147	(1)
In the Bathtub, to Mnemosyne	148	(1)
Esprit d'Escalier	149	(1)
Cross Questions	149	(1)
Stephen Vincent Benet (1898--1943)
from John Brown's Body	150	(4)
American Names	154	(2)
Cotton Mather	156	(1)
Daniel Boone	156	(1)
Metropolitan Nightmare	157	(3)
Malcolm Cowley (1898--1989)
Winter Tenement	160	(1)
Ernest	161	(1)
Harry Crosby (1898--1929)
Vision	162	(3)
Photoheliograph	165	(1)
Horace Gregory (1898--1982)
from Chorus for Survival	166	(2)
The Cage of Voices	168	(2)
Melvin B. Tolson (1898--1966)
from Libretto for the Republic of Liberia	170	(6)
from Harlem Gallery	176	(7)
Leonie Adams (1899--1988)
April Mortality	183	(1)
Ghostly Tree	183	(1)
The Rounds and Garlands Done	184	(1)
The Moon and Spectator	185	(1)
Fragmentary Stars	185	(1)
The Horn	186	(1)
The Figurehead	187	(1)
Grapes Making	187	(2)
Hart Crane (1899--1932)
Chaplinesque	189	(1)
For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen	190	(4)
Voyages	194	(5)
Repose of Rivers	199	(1)
The Wine Menagerie	199	(2)
At Melville's Tomb	201	(1)
The Bridge	202	(40)
O Carib Isle!	242	(1)
The Broken Tower	243	(2)
Thomas A. Dorsey (1899--1993)
Take My Hand, Precious Lord	245	(1)
Hildegrade Flanner (1899--1987)
Dumb	246	(1)
Moment	246	(1)
Fern Song	246	(1)
Frog Song	247	(1)
True Western Summer	248	(1)
Janet Lewis (1899--1998)
from The Indians in the Woods	249	(2)
Girl Help	251	(1)
The Reader	252	(1)
Winter Garden	252	(1)
Helen Grown Old	253	(1)
For the Father of Sandro Gulotta	254	(1)
The Ancient Ones: Betatakin	255	(1)
Garden Note I, Los Altos	256	(1)
Garden Note II, March	256	(1)
Joseph Moncure March (1899--1977)
from The Wild Party	257	(6)
Vladimir Nabokov (1899--1977)
from Lolita	263	(2)
On Translating ``Eugene Onegin,''	265	(1)
Lynn Riggs (1899--1954)
Santo Domingo Corn Dance	266	(3)
Allen Tate (1899--1979)
Mr. Pope	269	(1)
Ode to the Confederate Dead	269	(3)
The Twelve	272	(1)
Last Days of Alice	273	(1)
The Wolves	274	(1)
Aeneas at Washington	275	(1)
The Ivory Tower	276	(1)
The Mediterranean	277	(2)
Sonnets at Christmas	279	(1)
The Swimmers	280	(3)
Edward Dahlberg (1900--1977)
February Ground	283	(2)
Walt Whitman	285	(3)
Yvor Winters (1900--1968)
Two Songs of Advent	288	(1)
The Magpie's Shadow	288	(3)
The Solitude of Glass	291	(1)
October	292	(1)
Vacant Lot	292	(1)
The Cold	293	(1)
Nocturne	294	(1)
The Barnyard	294	(1)
Wild Sunflower	295	(1)
The Realization	296	(1)
Apollo and Daphne	296	(1)
The Fable	297	(1)
The Fall of Leaves	297	(1)
The Slow Pacific Swell	298	(1)
To a Young Writer	299	(1)
By the Road to the Sunnyvale Air-Base	300	(1)
Elegy on a Young Airedale Bitch Lost Two Years Since in the Salt-Marsh	300	(1)
On Teaching the Young	301	(1)
Time and the Garden	301	(1)
In Praise of California Wines	302	(1)
To the Moon	303	(1)
Sterling A. Brown (1901--1989)
Long Gone	304	(1)
Scotty Has His Say	305	(1)
Sister Lou	306	(2)
Southern Road	308	(1)
Memphis Blues	309	(2)
Ma Rainey	311	(2)
Slim in Atlanta	313	(1)
Children's Children	314	(1)
Chillen Get Shoes	315	(1)
Sporting Beasley	316	(2)
Cabaret	318	(3)
Old Lem	321	(2)
Robert Francis (1901--1987)
A Broken View	323	(1)
Onion Fields	324	(1)
Earthworm	324	(1)
Slow	325	(1)
By Night	325	(1)
The Curse	326	(1)
While I Slept	326	(1)
The Sound I Listened For	326	(1)
As Easily As Trees	327	(1)
Waxwings	327	(1)
Pitcher	328	(1)
Cypresses	328	(1)
Swimmer	329	(1)
Farm Boy After Summer	329	(1)
Museum Vase	330	(1)
Lindley Williams Hubbell (1901--1994)
Ordovician Fossil Algae	331	(1)
Sounds	331	(1)
A student who sat facing me on the Osaka express	332	(1)
Beer Bottles	332	(2)
Waka	334	(1)
Laura Riding (1901--1991)
An Ancient Revisits	335	(1)
As Well As Any Other	335	(1)
Prisms	336	(1)
Lucrece and Nara	336	(1)
O Vocables of Love	337	(1)
Faith Upon the Waters	338	(1)
Sea, False Philosophy	339	(1)
The Map of Places	339	(1)
Chloe or...	340	(1)
Take Hands	341	(1)
The World and I	341	(1)
The Wind, the Clock, the We	342	(1)
Nothing So Far	343	(1)
Divestment of Beauty	344	(1)
Because of Clothes	345	(1)
With the Face	346	(1)
Arna Bontemps (1902--1973)
Reconnaissance	347	(1)
Southern Mansion	348	(1)
Dark Girl	348	(1)
A Black Man Talks of Reaping	349	(1)
Kenneth Fearing (1902--1961)
Green Light	350	(1)
Evening Song	351	(1)
1933	352	(2)
Escape	354	(2)
Dirge	356	(1)
Portrait	357	(1)
American Rhapsody (4)	358	(1)
Literary	359	(1)
How Do I Feel?	360	(1)
Art Review	361	(1)
Reception Good	361	(2)
Beware	363	(1)
4 A.M.	363	(2)
Bryce & Tomlins	365	(2)
Langston Hughes (1902--1967)
The Negro Speaks of Rivers	367	(1)
Aunt Sue's Stories	367	(1)
When Sue Wears Red	368	(1)
Young Prostiture	369	(1)
My People	369	(1)
Dream Variations	369	(1)
Subway Face	370	(1)
I, Too	370	(1)
Suicide's Note	371	(1)
Summer Night	371	(1)
Strange Hurt	372	(1)
A House in Taos	372	(2)
Railroad Avenue	374	(1)
Sea Calm	375	(1)
Drum	375	(1)
Cubes	375	(2)
Little Lyric (Of Great Importance)	377	(1)
Evil	377	(1)
Songs	377	(1)
Luck	378	(1)
Curious	378	(1)
American Heartbreak	378	(1)
from Montage of a Dream Deferred	379	(17)
Ogden Nash (1902--1971)
Spring Comes to Murray Hill	396	(1)
Reflection on Ice-Breaking	396	(1)
The Terrible People	397	(1)
Song of the Open Road	398	(1)
Very Like a Whale	398	(1)
A Necessary Dirge	399	(1)
Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man	400	(2)
The Germ	402	(1)
Glossina Morsitans, or, the Tsetse	402	(1)
Samson Agonistes	402	(1)
Inter-Office Memorandum	403	(1)
Which the Chicken, Which the Egg?	404	(1)
Eve Triem (1902--1992)
For Paul	405	(1)
Countee Cullen (1903--1946)
Yet Do I Marvel	406	(1)
Atlantic City Waiter	406	(1)
Incident	407	(1)
Heritage	407	(4)
For My Grandmother	411	(1)
For a Lady I Know	411	(1)
For One Who Gayly Sowed His Oats	411	(1)
For Hazel Hall, American Poet	411	(1)
From the Dark Tower	412	(1)
Edwin Denby (1903--1983)
The Subway	413	(1)
A New York Face	413	(1)
``I had heard it's a fight. At the first clammy touch,''	414	(1)
``Smelling or feeling of the several holes,''	415	(1)
Dudley Fitts (1903--1968)
``Ya se van los pastores,''	416	(1)
Brewster Ghiselin (b. 1903)
Shore Bird	417	(1)
Bath of Aphrodite	417	(2)
The Food of Birds	419	(1)
The Net Breaker	419	(1)
Learning the Language	420	(1)
Lorine Niedecker (1903--1970)
``Remember my little granite pail?''	421	(1)
``The clothesline post is set,''	421	(1)
``There's a better shine,''	421	(1)
``What horror to awake at night,''	421	(1)
``Paul/when the leaves/fall,''	422	(1)
``The death of my poor father,''	422	(1)
``Woman in middle life,''	423	(1)
``He lived---childhood summers,''	423	(1)
``I rose from marsh mud,''	424	(1)
The Graves	424	(1)
``My friend tree,''	425	(1)
``The men leave the car,''	425	(1)
``My life is hung up,''	425	(1)
``Get a load/of April's,''	425	(1)
Poet's Work	426	(1)
``I married,''	426	(1)
My Life By Water	427	(1)
``Far reach/of sand,''	428	(1)
``Stone/and that hard/contact---''	428	(1)
Sewing a Dress	429	(1)
Paean to Place	429	(7)
``Not all harsh sounds displease---''	436	(1)
Darwin	436	(5)
Carl Rakosi (b. 1903)
The January of a Gnat	441	(1)
Amulet	441	(1)
Figures in an Ancient Ink	442	(1)
The Lobster	443	(1)
Lying in Bed on a Summer Morning	444	(1)
Young Girl	445	(2)
Americana 3	447	(1)
To an Anti-Semite	448	(1)
Discoveries, Trade Names, Genitals, and Ancient Instruments	448	(1)
Two Variations on a Theme	449	(1)
Instructions to the Player	449	(1)
The Avocado Pit	450	(1)
R. P. Blackmur (1904--1965)
Redwing	451	(1)
``One grey and foaming day,''	452	(1)
Mirage	453	(1)
Seas Incarnadine	453	(1)
Since There's No Help...	454	(1)
The Communiques from Yalta	454	(1)
Sunt Lacrimae Rerum et Mentem Mortalia Tangunt	455	(1)
Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
This Fevers Me	456	(1)
The Groundhog	457	(1)
`I Walked Over the Grave of Henry James,'	458	(1)
The Fury of Aerial Bombardment	458	(1)
On a Squirrel Crossing the Road in Autumn, in New England	459	(1)
La Crosse at Ninety Miles an Hour	460	(1)
Gnat on My Paper	461	(2)
John Holmes (1904--1962)
The Old Professor	463	(1)
Four and a Half	463	(2)
Louis Zukofsky (1904--1978)
I Sent Thee Late	465	(1)
Poem beginning ``The,''	465	(12)
``Not much more than being,''	477	(1)
``Cocktails,''	477	(1)
Ferry	478	(1)
Tibor Serly	479	(2)
``in that this happening,''	481	(1)
``To my wash-stand,''	481	(2)
``When the crickets,''	483	(1)
``It's hard to see but think of a sea,''	484	(1)
``The lines of this new song are nothing,''	485	(1)
``Can a mote of sunlight defeat its purpose,''	485	(1)
(Ryokan's scroll)	485	(1)
Xenophanes	486	(1)
``As To How Much,''	486	(1)
Shang Cup	487	(1)
``A'' II	488	(1)
from ``A'' 12	489	(7)
Howard Baker (1905--1990)
Advice to a Man Who Lost a Dog	496	(1)
Sappho's Leap	497	(1)
Frank Marshall Davis (1905--1987)
Christ Is a Dixie Nigger	498	(1)
Sam Jackson	499	(1)
Dorothy Fields (1905--1974)
I Can't Give You Anything But Love	500	(1)
Stanley Kunitz (b. 1905)
The Science of the Night	501	(1)
The Dragonfly	502	(2)
The Testing-Tree	504	(3)
The Catch	507	(1)
The Quarrel	508	(1)
Route Six	508	(2)
Touch Me	510	(1)
Phyllis McGinley (1905--1978)
Twelfth Night	511	(1)
Spring Comes to the Suburbs	512	(1)
The 5:32	512	(1)
Portrait of Girl with Comic Book	513	(1)
Kenneth Rexroth (1905--1982)
Spring, Coast Range	514	(1)
Andree Rexroth	515	(1)
The Signature of All Things	515	(3)
Lyell's Hypothesis Again	518	(1)
It Is a German Honeymoon	519	(2)
On Flower Wreath Hill	521	(6)
from The Love Poems of Marichiko	527	(6)
Byron Vazakas (1905--1987)
The Pavilion on the Pier	533	(1)
Epitaph for the Old Howard	533	(2)
Robert Penn Warren (1905--1989)
The Return: An Elegy	535	(3)
Bearded Oaks	538	(1)
Where the Slow Fig's Purple Sloth	539	(1)
Audubon: A Vision	540	(17)
Birth of Love	557	(2)
Evening Hawk	559	(1)
Heart of Autumn	560	(1)
Vision	560	(2)
Muted Music	562	(2)
Stanley Burnshaw (b. 1906)
End of the Flower-World	564	(1)
Bread	564	(2)
Waring Cuney (1906--1976)
No Images	566	(1)
The Death Bed	566	(1)
Conception	567	(1)
Joseph Kalar (1906--1972)
Papermill	568	(1)
Richmond Lattimore (1906--1984)
North Philadelphia Trenton and New York	569	(1)
Vergil Georgics I.489--514	570	(1)
Helene Johnson (1907--1995)
Bottled	571	(1)
Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem	572	(1)
Magalu	573	(1)
Lincoln Kirstein (1907--1996)
Gloria	574	(6)
P.O.E.	580	(1)
Constance Carrier (1908--1991)
A Point of View	581	(1)
Clause for a Covenant	582	(1)
Elegy	582	(1)
Laudare	583	(1)
Helianthus	584	(1)
Alton Delmore (1908--1964)
The Girl by the River	585	(2)
Josephine Jacobsen (b. 1908)
Poems for My Cousin	587	(3)
Yellow	590	(1)
George Oppen (1908--1984)
Discrete Series	591	(10)
Eclogue	601	(1)
Image of the Engine	602	(2)
From Disaster	604	(1)
Psalm	605	(1)
The Occurrences	606	(1)
Route	606	(9)
But So As By Fire	615	(1)
In Memoriam Charles Reznikoff	616	(1)
Theodore Roethke (1908--1963)
The Heron	617	(1)
The Bat	617	(1)
Cuttings	618	(1)
Cuttings (later)	618	(1)
Root Cellar	618	(1)
Old Florist	619	(1)
Frau Bauman, Frau Schmidt, and Frau Schwartze	619	(1)
My Papa's Waltz	620	(1)
The Lost Son	621	(5)
Four for Sir John Davies	626	(4)
Elegy for Jane	630	(1)
The Waking	630	(1)
I Knew a Woman	631	(1)
A Walk in Late Summer	632	(1)
The Rose	633	(4)
The Thing	637	(1)
In a Dark Time	638	(1)
Richard Wright (1908--1960)
I Have Seen Black Hands	639	(2)
The FB Eye Blues	641	(1)
Selected Haiku	642	(4)
Helen Adam (1909--1993)
Mune Rune	646	(1)
The Huntsman	647	(2)
Shallow-Water Warning	649	(2)
James Agee (1909--1955)
``Not met and marred with the year's whole turn of grief,''	651	(1)
``So it begins. Adam is in his earth,''	651	(1)
``Now stands our love on that still verge of day,''	652	(1)
``This little time the breath and bulk of being,''	652	(1)
To Walker Evans	653	(1)
``Wake up Threeish,''	654	(1)
Mary Barnard (b. 1909)
Shoreline	655	(1)
Logging Trestle	656	(1)
The Field	657	(1)
Static	658	(1)
The Solitary	658	(1)
Probably Nobody	659	(1)
The Pleiades	659	(1)
Lethe	660	(1)
Johnny Mercer (1909--1976)
Blues in the Night	661	(1)
Midnight Sun	662	(2)
Elder Olson (1909--1992)
The Four Black Bogmen	664	(2)
Edwin Rolfe (1909--1954)
Casualty	666	(1)
Paris---Christmas 1938	666	(1)
First Love	667	(2)
Bukka White (1909--1977)
Fixin' to Die	669	(1)
Robert Fitzgerald (1910--1985)
Manuscript with Illumination	670	(1)
Horae	671	(2)
Et Quidquid Aspiciebam Mors Erat	673	(2)
Farewell	675	(1)
Mutations	676	(1)
History	676	(1)
Souls Lake	677	(1)
South Side	678	(1)
Spring Shade	679	(1)
Frank Loesser (1910--1969)
Luck, Be a Lady	680	(2)
Rosalie Moore (b. 1910)
The Mind's Disguise	682	(1)
Memory of Quiet	682	(1)
Height	683	(1)
Charles Olson (1910--1970)
La Preface	684	(1)
These Days	685	(1)
In Cold Hell, in Thicket	685	(6)
The Moon Is the Number 18	691	(1)
Merce of Egypt	692	(2)
As the Dead Prey Upon Us	694	(8)
Variations Done for Gerald Van De Wiele	702	(4)
from The Maximus Poems
Letter 3	706	(4)
Maximus, to himself	710	(2)
The Ocean	712	(2)
``flower of the underworld,''	714	(1)
``I live underneath/the light of day,''	714	(2)
Winfield Townley Scott (1910--1968)
Crocus Air	716	(1)
Flowering Quince	716	(1)
The U.S. Sailor with the Japanese Skull	717	(1)
Winslow Homer	718	(1)
Ben Belitt (b. 1911)
The Orange Tree	719	(1)
Kites: Ars Poetica	720	(1)
Elizabeth Bishop (1911--1979)
The Map	721	(1)
The Man-Moth	722	(1)
Sleeping on the Ceiling	723	(1)
Roosters	724	(4)
The Fish	728	(2)
Over 2000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance	730	(2)
The Bight	732	(1)
At the Fishhouses	733	(3)
The Prodigal	736	(1)
The Shampoo	736	(1)
Song for the Rainy Season	737	(2)
The Armadillo	739	(1)
Sestina	740	(2)
Sandpiper	742	(1)
Twelfth Morning; or What You Will	742	(1)
In the Waiting Room	743	(3)
Crusoe in England	746	(5)
One Art	751	(1)
Sonnet	752	(1)
J. V. Cunningham (1911--1985)
Dream Vision	753	(1)
A Moral Poem	754	(1)
For My Contemporaries	755	(1)
Montana Pastoral	755	(1)
Selected Epigrams	756	(2)
To What Strangers, What Welcome	758	(6)
Rose Drachler (1911--1982)
The Evening of the Sixth Day	764	(2)
Paul Goodman (1911--1972)
The Lordly Hudson	766	(1)
Robert Johnson (1911--1938)
Stones in My Passway	767	(1)
Hellhound on My Trail	768	(1)
Me and the Devil Blues	769	(2)
Josephine Miles (1911--1985)
Housewife	771	(1)
All Hallow	771	(1)
Sale	772	(1)
``After noon I lie down,''	772	(1)
Album	773	(1)
Kenneth Patchen (1911--1972)
Street Corner College	774	(1)
Religion Is That I Love You	774	(1)
23rd Street Runs into Heaven	775	(1)
The Figure Motioned with Its Mangled Hand Towards the Wall Behind It	776	(1)
The Horses of Yilderlin	777	(1)
The Origin of Baseball	777	(1)
The Lions of Fire Shall Have Their Hunting	778	(1)
Lonesome Boy Blues	779	(1)
Hyam Plutzik (1911--1962)
The Airman Who Flew Over Shakespeare's England	780	(1)
Winter, Never Mind Where	781	(1)
For T.S.E. Only	781	(2)
As the Great Horse Rots on the Hill	783	(2)
Anne Porter (b. 1911)
Consider the Lilies of the Sea	785	(1)
Winter Twilight	785	(1)
Tennessee Williams (1911--1983)
The Beanstalk Country	786	(1)
John Cage (1912--1992)
2 Pages, 122 Words on Music and Dance	787	(1)
from Composition in Retrospect	788	(4)
William Everson (1912--1994)
Muscat Pruning	792	(1)
Tor House	792	(1)
Rainy Easter	793	(1)
A Canticle to the Waterbirds	793	(4)
Gale at Dawn	797	(1)
Stone Face Falls	798	(2)
Jean Garrigue (1912--1972)
Song in Sligo	800	(1)
The Grand Canyon	801	(3)
Grenoble Cafe	804	(1)
Woody Guthrie (1912--1967)
Dust Storm Disaster	805	(2)
Talking Dust Bowl	807	(1)
Vigilante Man	808	(2)
Lightnin' Hopkins (1912--1982)
Death Bells	810	(1)
May Sarton (1912--1995)
Moving In	811	(1)
The Snow Light	812	(1)
February Days	813	(1)
Virginia Hamilton Adair (b. 1913)
Buckroe, After the Season, 1942	814	(1)
Exit Amor	815	(1)
Charles Henri Ford (b. 1913)
The Fox with the Blue Velvet Band	816	(1)
The Overturned Lake	816	(1)
I Wouldn't Put It Past You	817	(1)
Robert Hayden (1913--1980)
Those Winter Sundays	818	(1)
Homage to the Empress of the Blues	818	(1)
Middle Passage	819	(6)
Runagate Runagate	825	(2)
Soledad	827	(1)
The Night-Blooming Cereus	828	(2)
Ice Storm	830	(1)
Bone-Flower Elegy	831	(1)
John Frederick Nims (1913--1999)
The Evergreen	832	(3)
Muriel Rukeyser (1913--1980)
The Book of the Dead	835	(4)
Ajanta	839	(5)
The Outer Banks	844	(6)
The Speed of Darkness	850	(3)
The Poem as Mask	853	(1)
Myth	854	(1)
David Schubert (1913--1946)
Monterey	855	(1)
It Is Sticky in the Subway	856	(1)
Prospect Park	856	(1)
Victor Record Catalog	857	(1)
A Successful Summer	858	(1)
No Title	859	(2)
Delmore Schwartz (1913--1966)
In the Naked Bed, in Plato's Cave	861	(1)
Sonnet: The Beautiful American Word, Sure	862	(1)
Far Rockaway	862	(1)
Tired and Unhappy, You Think of Houses	863	(1)
In the Slight Ripple, the Mind Perceives the Heart	864	(1)
The Ballet of the Fifth Year	864	(1)
Do the Others Speak of Me Mockingly, Maliciously?	865	(1)
The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me	866	(1)
Darkling Summer, Ominous Dusk, Rumorous Rain	867	(1)
The Mind Is an Ancient and Famous Capital	868	(1)
Lincoln	869	(2)
Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
Auto Wreck	871	(1)
University	872	(1)
Troop Train	873	(1)
Full Moon: New Guinea	874	(1)
Homecoming	875	(1)
The Alphabet	876	(1)
The Confirmation	877	(1)
The First Time	878	(1)
I Am an Atheist Who Says His Prayers	879	(2)
The Funeral of Poetry	881	(1)
May Swenson (1913--1989)
Question	882	(1)
The Centaur	883	(2)
Almanac	885	(1)
Riding the ``A,''	886	(1)
Distance and a Certain Light	887	(1)
Colors Without Objects	887	(2)
Unconscious Came a Beauty	889	(1)
The Shape of Death	890	(1)
Electronic Sound	891	(1)
How Everything Happens (Based on a study of the Wave)	892	(1)
Bronco Busting, Event #1	893	(1)
One of the Strangest	893	(1)
Shu Swamp, Spring	894	(1)
Staring at the Sea on the Day of a Death of Another	895	(4)
Biographical Notes	899	(52)
Note on the Texts	951	(14)
Acknowledgments	965	(9)
Notes	974	(16)
Index of Titles and First Lines	990	(18)
Index of Poets	1008

Excerpts

Chapter One

R. P. Blackmur

1904-1965

Mirage

The wind was in another country, and

the day had gathered to its heart of noon

the sum of silence, heat, and stricken time.

Not a ripple spread. The sea mirrored

perfectly all the nothing in the sky.

We had to walk about to keep our eyes

from seeing nothing, and our hearts from stopping

at nothing. Then most suddenly we saw

horizon on horizon lifting up

out of the sea's edge a shining mountain

sun-yellow and sea-green; against it surf

flung spray and spume into the miles of sky.

Somebody said mirage, and it was gone,

but there I have been living ever since.

BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON

(1897-1929)

Long Distance Moan

I'm flying to South Carolina

                           I gotta go there this time

I'm flying to South Carolina

                           I gotta go there this time

Woman in Dallas Texas

                     is 'bout to make me lose my mind

Long distance, long distance

                          will you please give me a credit call

Long distance, long distance

                          will you give me a please cr-credit call

Want to talk to my gal in South Carolina

                                 who looks like a Indian squaw

Just want to ask my baby

                         what in the world is she been doing

I want to ask my baby

                      what in the world is she been doing

Give your loving to another joker

                                and it's sure gonna be my ruin

Hey long distance

                 I can't help but moan

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

                I can't help but moan

My baby's voice sound so sweet

                          oh I'm gonna break this telephone

You don't know you love

                        your rider till she is so far from you

You don't know you love your rider

                                    until she's so far from you

You can get long distance moan

                             and you don't care what you do

I say no use standing and buzzing

                               to get my brownie off my mind

No use standing and bawling

                            get my baby off my mind

This long distance moan

                        about to worry me to death this time

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