Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991

by Carruth, Hayden

• ISBN13: 9781556590481
• ISBN10: 1556590482
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1992-09-01
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Pr

Summary

Poetry. COLLECTED SHORTER POEMS presents hundreds of lyric, short narrative, comic, meditative, nature, and erotic poems spanning nearly half a century. Hayden Carruth's engagement with political radicalism, rural poverty, and cultural responsibility in the life of poetry is unique in our time. Celebrated for the breadth of his linguistic and formal resources, and influenced by jazz and blues, he has been called by Adrienne Rich "one of our country's poetic treasures."

Author Biography

Hayden Carruth is the author of twenty-five books of poetry, a novel, four books of criticism, and two anthologies, and has held fellowships from the Bollingen, Guggenheim and Lannan foundations, as well as the NEA. His many awards include the National Book Award for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Lenore Marshall/The Nation Award.

Table of Contents

From The Crow and the Heart (1959)
The Wreck of the Circus Train	3	(1)
The Snow	3	(2)
The Fact of the Matter	5	(2)
Cappadocian Song	7	(1)
On a Certain Engagement South of Seoul	7	(2)
Sparrows	9	(1)
Summer's Early End at Hudson's Bay	10	(1)
The Buddhist Painter Prepares to Paint	10	(2)
Lines Written in an Asylum	12	(2)
Anxious View of a Tree	14	(1)
Reflexive	14	(1)
The Fat Lady	15	(4)
Return to Love	19	(1)
Incident of May	19	(1)
November: Indian Summer	20	(1)
The Sound of Snow	20	(1)
An Apology for Using the Word ``Heart'' in Too Many Poems	21	(1)
Museum Piece	22	(1)
The Birth of Venus	23	(4)
From The Norfolk Poems of Hayden Carruth (1962)
In Tobey Woods	27	(1)
The Wild Swans at Norfolk	27	(1)
Meadow House	28	(2)
Ho-Hum Again	30	(1)
Comparative Iconography	30	(1)
Purana, Meaning Once Upon a Time	30	(2)
On Canaan Mountain Meadow	32	(1)
Naming for Love	32	(2)
August 14, 1961	34	(1)
Adolf Eichmann	34	(1)
A Leaf from Mr. Dyer's Woods	35	(1)
Notes from Robin Hill Cottage	36	(2)
R. M. D.	38	(3)
From Nothing for Tigers (1965)
The Event Itself	41	(1)
The Master, Grieved with Age	41	(1)
Horologikos	42	(1)
The Saving Way	42	(2)
Burning Dawn	44	(1)
New Orleans	44	(1)
Anent Socrates, or Somebody	45	(1)
From Etudes De Plusieurs Paysages De L'ame	45	(1)
Billie Holiday	46	(1)
Algeria	46	(2)
Ontological Episode of the Asylum	48	(1)
Existence Before Essence	48	(1)
Alive	49	(1)
Essay on Marriage	49	(2)
Godhulivela	51	(1)
Light in the Locust Tree	52	(1)
Ekstase, Alptraum, Schlaf in Einem Nest Von Flammen	53	(1)
Spring Notes from Robin Hill	53	(4)
The Smallish Son	57	(2)
The President's Speech	59	(1)
Freedom and Discipline	60	(5)
From The Clay Hill Anthology (1970)
Selected Haiku	65	(10)
From From Snow and Rock, from Chaos (1973)
Dedication in These Days	75	(1)
I Could Take	75	(1)
French Hill	76	(2)
If it were not for you	78	(1)
Speaking for them	79	(1)
To Artemis	80	(1)
Tabula Rasa	81	(1)
Concerning Necessity	82	(1)
The Ravine	83	(1)
Homecoming	84	(2)
Once More	86	(1)
The Cows at Night	87	(1)
Emergency Haying	88	(3)
The Far-Removed Mountain Men	91	(1)
The Insomniac Sleeps Well for Once and	92	(1)
This Song	92	(1)
The Birds of Vietnam	93	(2)
The Baler	95	(1)
I Know, I Remember, But How Can I Help You	95	(1)
This Decoration	96	(2)
Too Tenuous	98	(1)
Rimrock, Where it is	99	(1)
Song	100	(1)
Twilight Comes	101	(1)
Abandoned Ranch, Big Bend	102	(3)
From Dark World (1974)
Eternal City	105	(1)
The Chase in Spring	105	(1)
In Russia	106	(1)
The Existing Pool	107	(2)
Spring 1967	109	(1)
Coming Down to the Desert at Lordsburg, N. M.	110	(1)
Thaw	111	(1)
Re-Acquaintance	112	(1)
Stepping Backward	113	(1)
Green Mountain Idyl	114	(1)
Poetical Abstracts	115	(8)
From The Bloomingdale Papers (1975 [written 1953])
Excerpts	123	(20)
From Brothers, I Loved you all (1978)
The Loon on Forrester's Pond	143	(1)
When Howitzers Began	144	(1)
August First	144	(1)
That I Had Had Courage When Young	145	(1)
Essay	146	(1)
The Joy and Agony of Improvisation	147	(1)
My Hut	148	(1)
In Memoriam	148	(1)
The Little Fire in the Woods	149	(2)
The Mountain Cabin	151	(1)
Family Reunion	152	(1)
The Mountain	153	(2)
Essay on Stone	155	(2)
Valentine	157	(2)
Once and Again	159	(1)
November Jeans Song	159	(1)
Simple	160	(1)
John Dryden	161	(4)
Johnny Spain's White Heifer	165	(3)
Lady	168	(2)
Marshall Washer	170	(6)
Crow's Mark	176	(2)
The Poet	178	(1)
Essay on Love	178	(3)
Missing the Bo in the Henhouse	181	(1)
Paragraphs	182	(19)
From If you Call This Cry a Song (1983)
Words in a Certain Appropriate Mode	201	(1)
I Tell you for Several Years of my Madness I Heard the Voice of Lilith Singing in the Trees of Chicago	202	(1)
On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam	203	(1)
Anima	204	(2)
The Point	206	(1)
Two Romantic Pieces	207	(1)
Bouquet in Dog Time	208	(1)
My Meadow	209	(2)
Regarding Chainsaws	211	(2)
Marvin Mccabe	213	(4)
Bears at Raspberry Time	217	(2)
Song: So Often, So Long I Have Thought	219	(1)
A Little Old Funky Homeric Blues for Herm	220	(4)
The Mouse	224	(1)
The Line	225	(2)
Almanach Du Printemps Vivarois	227	(3)
Song of the Two Crows	230	(3)
Mild Winter	233	(1)
Who Cares, Long as it's B-flat	234	(1)
Rummage	235	(1)
The Sorrow Song	235	(3)
Loneliness: An Outburst of Hexasyllables	238	(7)
Of Brook and Stone	245	(1)
Moon-Set	245	(1)
Afternoon of a Faun	246	(4)
They Accuse me of not Talking	250	(1)
The Cowshed Blues	250	(7)
From Asphalt Georgics (1985)
Names	257	(15)
How to	272	(2)
Lost	274	(1)
Lana	275	(4)
Marge	279	(11)
Cave Painting	290	(2)
New Hartford	292	(2)
Phone	294	(2)
Septic Tanck	296	(2)
Capper Kaplinski at the North Side Cue Club	298	(1)
Sam and Poll Go Back to the City	299	(4)
Shake, Well Before Using	303	(6)
From The Oldest Killed Lake in North America (1985)
The Oldest Killed Lake in North America	309	(1)
Unnatural Unselection	309	(1)
Eternity Blues	309	(2)
Fragment	311	(1)
For Papa	311	(1)
The Language of Flowers, Etc	312	(1)
When I Wrote a Little	312	(1)
All Things	313	(1)
Chicory	314	(1)
An Excursus of Reassurance in Begonia Time	314	(2)
Carnations	316	(1)
Song: The Old, Old Man	317	(1)
Song: The Famous Vision of America	318	(1)
Song: Luxury	318	(1)
Song: The Young Man with the Guitar, Testing	319	(1)
Song: So Why does this Dead Carnation	320	(5)
From Sonnets (1989)
A Selection	325	(24)
From Tell Me Again How the White Heron Rises and Flies Across the Nacreous River at Twilight Toward the Distant Islands (1989)
The Incorrigible Dirigible	349	(1)
Not Transhistorical Death, or at Least Not Quite	349	(2)
An Expatiation on the Combining of Weathers at Thirty-Seventh and Indiana Where the Southern More or Less Crosses the Dog	351	(1)
Sometimes when Lovers Lie Quietly Together, Unexpectedly One of Them Will Feel the Other's Pulse	352	(1)
The Impossible Indispensability of the Ars Poetica	352	(1)
Of Distress Being Humiliated by the Classical Chinese Masters	353	(1)
Survival as Tao, Beginning at 5:00 A. M.	354	(1)
Ovid, Old Buddy, I Would Discourse with you a While	355	(1)
The Sociology of Toyotas and Jade Chrysanthemums	356	(1)
``The World as Will and Representation''	357	(1)
To Know in Reverie the Only Phenomenology of the Absolute	358	(1)
Meditation in the Presence of ``Ostrich Walk''	358	(1)
No Supervening Thought of Grace	359	(1)
No Matter What, After all, and that Beautiful Word So	359	(2)
``Sure,'' Said Benny Goodman	361	(1)
A Post-Impressionist Susurration for the First of November, 1983	361	(2)
``I've Never Seen Such a Real Hard Time Before'': Three-Part Invention	363	(1)
Letter To Maxine Sullivan	364	(1)
Une Presence Absolue	365	(1)
How Lewisburg, Pa., Escaped the Avenging Angel	365	(1)
Underground the Darkness is the Light	366	(1)
Cross My Heart and Hope to Die, It was the Very Same Song Exactly	367	(4)
New Poems (1986-1991)
Living Alone	371	(5)
Pa Mccabe	376	(2)
What a Wonder Among the Instruments is the Walloping Tramboone	378	(2)
Continuo	380	(1)
A Backyard in California	380	(1)
Sonnet	381	(1)
Sonnet	381	(1)
Homage to John Lyly and Frankie Newton	382	(1)
Mix the Ingredients	382	(1)
The Bearer	383	(1)
Essay on Death	384	(8)
Songs About what Comes Down: The Complete Works of Mr. Septic Tanck	392	(8)
Silence	400	(1)
Sex	400	(2)
Pray You Young Woman	402	(1)
Assignment	402	(1)
Renaissance	403	(1)
August	404	(2)
Fourth	406	(1)
Listen	407	(1)
Aeolian	407	(2)
Gods	409	(1)
Opusthirteen	409	(1)
Block	410	(2)
Crucifixion	412	(1)
Three Songs	412	(2)
The Way of the Conventicle of the Trees	414	(1)
Questions	415	(1)
Ray	415	(1)
None	416	(1)
Woodsmoke at 70	417