Contains selected poems from: What a Kingdom It Was (1960) Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock (1964) Body Rags (1968) The Book of Nightmares (1971) Mortal Acts, Mortal Words (1980) The Past (1985) When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone (1990) Imperfect Thirst (1994)
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A New Selected Poems
Contains selected poems from: What a Kingdom It Was (1960) Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock (1964) Body Rags (1968) The Book of Nightmares (1971) Mortal Acts, Mortal Words (1980) The Past (1985) When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone (1990) Imperfect Thirst (1994)
Contains selected poems from: What a Kingdom It Was (1960) Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock (1964) Body Rags (1968) The Book of Nightmares (1971) Mortal Acts, Mortal Words (1980) The Past (1985) When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone (1990) Imperfect Thirst (1994)
GALWAY KINNELL (1927–2014) was a MacArthur Fellow and state poet of Vermont. In 1982 his Selected Poems won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. For many years he was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing at New York University, as well as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. For thirty-five years—from The Book of Nightmares to Mortal Acts and, most recently, Strong Is Your Hold—Galway Kinnell enriched American poetry, not only with his poems but also with his teaching and powerful public readings.
Read an Excerpt
Excerpt
Daybreak
On the tidal mud, just before sunset, dozens of starfishes were creeping. It was as though the mud were a sky and enormous, imperfect stars moved across it as slowly as the actual stars cross heaven. All at once they stopped, and, as if they had simply increased their receptivity to gravity, they sank down into the mud, faded down into it and lay still, and by the time pink of sunset broke across them they were invisible as the true stars at daybreak.
Table of Contents
Contents
Author’s Note xi
FROM What a Kingdom It Was 1960 First Song 3 For William Carlos Williams 4 Freedom, New Hampshire 5 The Supper After the Last 9 The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World 12
FROM Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock 1964 The River That Is East 29 For Robert Frost 31 Poem of Night 35 Middle of the Way 37 Ruins Under the Stars 39 Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock 41
FROM Body Rags 1968 Another Night in the Ruins 47 Vapor Trail Reflected in the Frog Pond 49 The Burn 51 The Fly 52 The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students 53 How Many Nights 54 The Porcupine 55 The Bear 59 FROM The Book of Nightmares 1971 Under the Maud Moon 65 The Hen Flower 70 The Dead Shall Be Raised Incorruptible 74 Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight 79 Lastness 83
FROM Mortal Acts, Mortal Words 1980 Fergus Falling 91 After Making Love We Hear Footsteps 93 Saint Francis and the Sow 94 Wait 95 Daybreak 96 Blackberry Eating 97 Kissing the Toad 98 On the Tennis Court at Night 99 The Last Hiding Places of Snow 101 Looking at Your Face 105 Fisherman 106 52 Oswald Street 107 A Milk Bottle 108
FROM The Past 1985 The Road Between Here and There 113 Conception 115 The Sow Piglet’s Escapes 116 The Olive Wood Fire 117 The Frog Pond 118 Prayer 120 Fire in Luna Park 121 Cemetery Angels 122 On the Oregon Coast 123 First Day of the Future 124 The Fundamental Project of Technology 125 The Waking 127 That Silent Evening 130
FROM When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone 1990 The Tragedy of Bricks 133 The Cat 135 Oatmeal 137 The Perch 139 The Room 141 Last Gods 142 Farewell 144 When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone 146
FROM Imperfect Thirst 1994 My Mother’s R & R 159 The Man in the Chair 160 The Cellist 162 Running on Silk 164 The Deconstruction of Emily Dickinson 166 Sheffield Ghazal 4: Driving West 168 Sheffield Ghazal 5: Passing the Cemetery 169 Parkinson’s Disease 170 Rapture 172 Flies 174 Neverland 178