Not for Specialists

by Snodgrass, W. D.

• ISBN13: 9781929918775
• ISBN10: 1929918771
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-04-01
• Publisher: Boa Editions

Summary

Until the late 1970s, W. D. Snodgrass was known primarily as a confessional poet and a key player in the emergence of that mode of poetry in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Snodgrass makes poetry out of the daily neuroses and everyday failures of a man-a husband, father, and teacher. This domestic suffering occurs against a backdrop of more universal suffering which Snodgrass believes is inherent in the human experience. Not for Specialists includes 35 new poems complemented by the superb work he wrote in the Pulitzer Prize winning collection, Heart's Needle, along with poetry from seven other distinguished collections. from "Nocturnes" Seen from higher up, it makes its first move in the low creekbed, the marshlands down the valley, spreading across the open hayfields, the hedgerows with their tops still lit, laps the roadbed, flows over lawns and gardens, past the house and up the wooded hillside back behind us till only some few rays still scythe between the treetrunks from the far horizon and are gone. W. D. Snodgrass, born in Pennsylvania in 1926, is the author of more than 20 books of poetry, including The Fuehrer Bunker: The Complete Cycle (BOA, 1995); Each in His Season (BOA, 1993); and Heart's Needle (1959), which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His other books include To Sound Like Yourself: Essays on Poetry (BOA, 2002), After-Images: Autobiographical Sketches (BOA, 1999) and six volumes of translation, including Selected Translations (BOA Editions, 1998), which won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award.

Table of Contents

from Heart's Needle, 1959
These Trees Stand . . .	13	(1)
Ten Days Leave	14	(2)
Returned to Frisco, 1946	16	(1)
April Inventory	17	(2)
Heart's Needle	19	(18)
from After Experience, 1968
``After Experience Taught Me . . .''	37	(2)
The Examination	39	(2)
A Flat One	41	(4)
Lying Awake	45	(1)
Lobsters in the Window	46	(1)
What We Said	47	(1)
Leaving the Motel	48	(1)
A Friend	49	(1)
No Use	50	(1)
The Lovers Go Fly a Kite	51	(2)
Van Gogh: ``The Starry Night''	53	(8)
from Remains, 1970, 1985
The Mother	61	(2)
The Mouse	63	(1)
Viewing the Body	64	(1)
Disposal	65	(1)
Fourth of July	66	(2)
To a Child	68	(5)
from Selected Poems, 1957--1987
An Elm Tree	73	(3)
Old Apple Trees	76	(2)
A Phoebe's Nest	78	(3)
Owls	81	(1)
Mutability	82	(1)
The Last Time	83	(1)
A Valediction	84	(1)
A Locked House	85	(2)
Old Jewelry	87	(1)
A Seashell	88	(1)
Love Lamp	89	(4)
from The Fuehrer Bunker, 1977, 1995
Chorus: ``Old Lady Barkeep''	93	(1)
Dr. Joseph Goebbels, ``Days, American bombing flights''	94	(3)
Martin Bormann, ``Dearest Beloved Momsy Girl''	97	(2)
Albert Speer, ``So / I am / Reborn?''	99	(2)
Hermann Goering, ``And Why, Herr Reichsmarschall . . .''	101	(2)
Heinrich Himmler, ``Astral·Signs·Suggest''	103	(1)
Adolf Hitler, ``Down: I got it all. Almost''	104	(3)
Albert Speer, ``We / Saved / The bridges''	107	(2)
Magda Goebbels, ``Now Joseph's sister's offered us . . .''	109	(1)
Heinrich Himmler, ``Aryan·Purity·A·Strain''	110	(2)
Adolf Hitler, ``Best stuffed in a bag and drowned''	112	(4)
Eva Braun, ``Tea for two/ And two for tea''	116	(4)
Joseph Goebbels, ``Stand back, make way . . .''	120	(3)
Adolf Hitler, ```To master the world . . .''	123	(3)
Magda Goebbels, ``This is the needle that we give''	126	(4)
Hermann Goering, ``When I speak to you . . .''	130	(2)
Heinrich Himmler, ``An·Eye-Patch''	132	(2)
Joseph Goebbels, ``Say goodbye to the help . . .''	134	(1)
Chorus: ``Old Lady Barkeep''	135	(4)
from Kinder Capers, 1986--2004
Seasoned Chairs for a Child	139	(4)
W. D. Picks a Bouquet for Cock Robin . . .	143	(1)
W. D. Sits in Kafka's Chair and Is Interrogated . . .	144	(1)
Auction	145	(2)
The Capture of Mr. Sun	147	(1)
A Strolling Minstrel's Ballad . . .	148	(1)
The Carnival Girl Darkly Attracts W. D.	149	(1)
Wire Walker	150	(2)
The Drunken Minstrel Rags his Bluegrass Lute	152	(3)
W. D. Studies the Spectra of Departure	155	(1)
Disguised as Humpty-Dumpty . . .	156	(2)
Dance Suite: Hip Hop	158	(2)
The Poet Ridiculed by Hysterical Academics	160	(5)
from Each in His Season, 1993
from Spring Suite	165	(4)
from Summer Sequence	169	(5)
from Autumn Variations	174	(3)
from Snow Songs	177	(4)
Birds Caught, Birds Flying	181	(2)
Elena Ceaucescu's Bed	183	(1)
In Memory of Lost Brain Cells	184	(2)
An Envoi, Post-TURP	186	(1)
A Curse	187	(3)
from In Flower	190	(5)
New Poems
The Discreet Advantages of a Reichstag Fire	195	(2)
Talking Heads	197	(1)
Gringoloandia	198	(2)
On the Streets	200	(2)
Lady!---	202	(2)
At the Villa	204	(1)
Farm Kids	205	(1)
Leavings	206	(1)
On High	207	(1)
Song Slam	208	(1)
Ruffed Grouse	209	(1)
Who Steals My Good Name	210	(1)
Nocturnes	211	(6)
``Leave your glasses''
``Seen from high up''
``From the blocked-up chimney's side''
Night Voices
``at hearing's far edge''
At Home, Lost
``Square by square''
Nightwatchman's Song	217	(3)
Chasing Fireflies	220	(2)
Fast Foods: A Rap Rondeau	222	(1)
Lasting	223	(1)
Parents	224	(1)
Sitting Outside	225	(1)
Pacemaker	226	(2)
Packing Up the Lute	228	(1)
For Hugues Cuenod	229	(2)
Warning	231	(1)
A Forty Gun Salute	232	(1)
Critic	233	(1)
Guru	234	(1)
Lifelong	235	(1)
A Separation Anthem	236	(1)
A Presence	237	(1)
For the Third Marriage of My First Ex-Wife	238	(2)
Phone Message	240	(1)
The Moth Chorale	241	(1)
Double Forte	242	(1)
Invitation	243	(2)
Afterword	245	(1)
Notes	246	(1)
Acknowledgments	247	(1)
About the Author	248	(4)
Colophon	252