Collected Poems

by James Schuyler

Overview

This collection of poetry showcases the unique talent of James Schuyler and highlights the writing that won him a Pulitzer Prize.

"Schuyler's subject is his life, and his poems often read like elegant journal entries." - Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374524036
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	09/30/1995
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

James Schuyler (1923–91) received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for The Morning of the Poem in 1981.

Table of Contents

	Editors' Note	xiii
	Freely Espousing (1969)
	Freely Espousing	3
	February	4
	With Frank and George at Lexington	5
	A Reumon	6
	Quick, Henry, the Flit!	6
	A New Yorker	7
	Walter Scott	8
	Greetings from the Chateau	9
	Royals	10
	"The Elizabethans Called It Dying"	11
	March Here	12
	Faberge	12
	A White City	13
	December	13
	Ilford Rose Book	14
	Rachmaninoff's Third	14
	Money Musk	15
	A Man in Blue	16
	Sestina	18
	An Almanac	19
	Thinness	20
	Hudson Ferry	21
	Flashes	22
	April and Its Forsythia	23
	Roof Garden	24
	May 24th or So	24
	Penobscot	25
	Today	26
	Sorting, wrapping, packing, stuffing	27
	Seeking	29
	Crocus Night	31
	Milk	31
	Going	32
	The Master of the Golden Glow	33
	Stun	34
	"Earth's Holocaust"	35
	Poem	36
	3/23/66	36
	Industrial Archaeology	37
	Now and then	38
	Buried at Springs	42
	Salute	44
	from The Home Book 1951-1970 (1977)
	A Grave	47
	Poem	47
	At the Beach	48
	Self-Pity Is a Kind of Lying, Too	48
	A Picnic Cantata	49
	Grand Duo	57
	Things to Do	59
	Dreams	60
	Joint	62
	Jelly Jelly	63
	Sonnet	64
	Voyage autour de mes cartes postales	64
	Four Poems	67
	"It's 4:30 in Cambridge"	67
	Mass. Ave., Cambridge, Mass.	69
	"We must observe the amenities"	69
	Frank! Frank!	70
	A Head	71
	Looking Forward to See Jane Real Soon	73
	Dorabella's Naples Watercolor	73
	A Poem	74
	The Crystal Lithium (1972)
	Southampton and New York
	Empathy and New Year	77
	Poem	80
	In January	80
	Blue	81
	Spring	82
	In earliest morning	82
	An East Window on Elizabeth Street	84
	Alice Faye at Ruby Foo's	85
	Buildings	86
	Wonderful World	87
	Scarlet Tanager	88
	A Sun Cab	90
	The Island
	Light Blue Above	92
	The Cenotaph	93
	After Joe was at the island	98
	"Used Handkerchiefs 5[cent]"	98
	The Trash Book	99
	8/12/70	100
	Light from Canada	100
	Gulls	101
	Closed Gentian Distances	102
	Fall and Winter
	September	103
	Evening Wind	103
	A Vermont Diary	104
	A Stone Knife	111
	The Dog Wants His Dinner	113
	Running Footsteps	114
	The Crystal Lithium	116
	Loving You
	Janis Joplin's Dead: Long Live Pearl	120
	Eyes	121
	The Night	123
	Like Lorraine Ellison	124
	Letter to a Friend: Who Is Nancy Daum?	125
	Letter Poem #2	130
	We Are Leaves	130
	Await	132
	Steaming Ties	134
	Watching You	135
	Letter Poem #3	136
	Hymn to Life (1974)
	Waterbury
	Beautiful Funerals	139
	Roxy	143
	Our Father	147
	Mike	149
	In the round	152
	Elsewhere
	Poem	154
	To Frank O'Hara	154
	Unlike Joubert	156
	Sometimes	157
	Eyes at the Window	157
	Two	159
	May, 1972	159
	June	160
	I think	161
	For Bob Dash	162
	Song	162
	Shimmer	163
	A Held Breath	164
	Sunday	164
	Bleeding Gums	165
	The sky eats up the trees	166
	Gray, intermittently blue, eyed hero	167
	Greenwich Avenue	169
	Labor Day	170
	Just before fall	171
	Buttered Greens	172
	Sparks	176
	Deep Winter	176
	In Wiry Winter	177
	So Good	179
	October	180
	Was It	182
	Poem	183
	Daylight	183
	You're	184
	A photograph	186
	Up	187
	Saturday Night	188
	Sunday	189
	August Night	189
	A blue towel	192
	Evenings in Vermont
	The Bluet	195
	"From the next ..."	196
	Standing and Watching	196
	The Green Door	197
	Sunset	198
	The Day	198
	Evening	200
	The Walk	200
	Evenings in Vermont	203
	Awoke	203
	Afterward	204
	The Faure Ballade
	The Faure Ballade	206
	Hymn to Life
	Hymn to Life	214
	The Morning of the Poem (1980)
	New Poems
	This Dark Apartment	227
	June 30, 1974	228
	Korean mums	231
	Growing Dark	232
	Dec. 28, 1974	233
	Good morning	234
	Song	235
	A Name Day	236
	Footnote	238
	Afterward	238
	I sit down to type	240
	The snow	242
	Wystan Auden	242
	Dining Out with Doug and Frank	244
	The Payne Whitney Poems
	Trip	252
	We walk	252
	Arches	253
	Linen	253
	Heather and Calendulas	254
	Back	255
	Blizzard	255
	February 13, 1975	256
	Sleep	256
	Pastime	257
	What	257
	The Morning of the Poem
	The Morning of the Poem	259
	A Few Days (1985)
	The Snowdrop	307
	The Rose of Marion	307
	Gray Day	308
	This notebook	309
	Lilacs	310
	Thursday	311
	Cornflowers	312
	Velvet Roses	312
	August first, 1974	313
	Sleep-Gummed Eyes	314
	Overcast, Hot	315
	At Darragh's I	316
	White	317
	Dear Joe	318
	Amy Lowell Thoughts	319
	The morning	320
	October 5, 1981	320
	Moon	321
	Virginia Woolf	321
	Oriane	322
	Beaded Balustrade	323
	People who see bubbles rise	323
	Autumn Leaves	324
	En Route to Southampton	325
	Tomorrow	326
	November	326
	Faure's Second Piano Quartet	327
	A Belated Birthday Poem	328
	Poem	330
	Red Brick and Brown Stone	330
	Tom	332
	Tom's Attempt to Seduce Big Brother Steve	335
	Sleep	336
	The Day	337
	A Table of Green Fields	337
	Tom's Dream	338
	Perhaps	339
	O Sleepless Night	339
	Suddenly	345
	The Fireproof Floors of Witley Court
	Witley Court	346
	Below the Stairs	346
	In a Churchyard	347
	Hats	348
	Frock	348
	What Ails My Fern?	348
	Wild Eggs	350
	Boer War Bread Strike	350
	Procession	351
	Adverts	351
	A Few Days
	A few days	354
	Mark	383
	Horse-Chestnut Trees and Roses	383
	Mood Indigo	385
	Rain	387
	Birds	388
	Shadowy Room	389
	White Boat, Blue Boat	390
	Over the hills	391
	A cardinal	393
	Ajaccio Violets	393
	Shaker	394
	Three Gardens	396
	4404 Stanford	396
	Erta Canina	396
	Chelsea	397
	Let's All Heat It for Mildred Bailey!	397
	Noon Office	399
	Simone Signoret	400
	The light within	402
	Advent	403
	Six something	403
	Andrew Lord Poems	404
	Under the Hanger	411
	Yellow Flowers	414
	Blossoming Oakwood	415
	A Chapel	416
	A View	417
	"This soft October"	418
	On the dresser	420
	Princess Di	421
	Haze	423
	Index of Titles and First Lines	425

Editorial Reviews

This posthumous collection of Schuyler's (1923-1991) work will confirm the poet's mastery of a type of poem made famous by his friend Frank O'Hara in the late 1950s. Schuyler's subject is his life, and his poems often read like elegant journal entries. The book presents intimate and conversational accounts of life in the Eastern literary landscape--New York City, New England, Long Island. In urbane free verse, the poet recalls and meditates on music and painting, homosexuality, weekends with friends--John Ashbery and Fairfield Porter among them--deaths, a drive to the Hamptons. Unlike many later writers who have tried to convey the poetry inherent in the mundane aspects of their quotidian routine, Schuyler had a superb ear for language, for ``How the thing said / Is in the words, how / The words are themselves / The thing said.'' His work is almost always interesting and witty, though rarely profound. A typical poem finds him dining out with friends, the narrative following the course of the poet's meandering thoughts: ``Now it's tomorrow, / as usual. Turned out that / Doug Douglas Crase, the poet / had to work (he makes his bread / writing speeches): thirty pages / explaining why Eastman Kodak's / semi-slump(?) is just what / the stockholders ordered.'' Rarely has a poet imparted so much of his experience as honestly and engagingly as Schuyler does here. (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The writing of the late James Schuyler (1923-1991) isn't everyone's cup of poesy, but it's undeniably rigorous and original. This volume, essential to every library collection, gathers together all of Schuyler's published collections, as well as a substantial group of previously unpublished work. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews