Robert LowellCritiques

This is a book I'll keep dipping into in front of the fire, the poems at hand, without concern for finishing.

Not a surprise due to their close friendship, but this is undeniably influenced by Elizabeth Bishop, especially toward the latter end of Life Studies. Skunk Hour and Night Sweat are the stars of the show in my opinion... how can you beat the subtle sorrow of "I dabble in the dapple of the day"?

3.75 because I'm feeling #pretentious.

So masterful of rhythm, sound, and allusional texture that I hardly ever cared to know the meaning. This is what Stevens would have been if he'd been good at the technical aspects of poetry.

I have never read correspondence before (except in epistolary novels) so I was pleasantly surprised by how readable it was. These letters cover a 30 year span which allows the reader to really get to know Bishop and Lowell. I would recommend either reading their poetry first or having it handy to refer to as (not surprisingly) there are a lot of references to specific poems (even to specific lines or words in the poems).

This collection seems to have little bearing on the original [b:Selected Poems|6947805|Selected Poems|Robert Lowell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1254841970s/6947805.jpg|1237929], published in 1965. It is a shame that the title couldn't have been something different... This expanded edition is a selection of what the editor thought were the best poems in each of Lowell's major books (including the original [b:Selected Poems|6947805|Selected Poems|Robert Lowell|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1254841970s/6947805.jpg|1237929] which was probably my least favorite part) and thus is more of a "best of" collection.

The editor has done a marvelous job with the notes in the appendix, and I also recommend reading the introduction (for once -- generally I dislike introductions!).

I only made it through 1947-1951. It was visits with Ezra Pound, stays in Key West on the Hemmingway property and stays at Yaddo with the likes of Flannery O'Connor, stays on the rocky coast of Novia Scotia. Coercing Dylan Thomas to make a recording of his work for the poetry collection at the Library of Congress, because that's where you work. Attending a reception for Edith and Osbert Sitwell at New York City's Gotham Book Mart with Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, Tennessee Williams, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Randall Jarred and others. Can you imagine? Mental breakdown, asthmatic collapse, failed marriage. The graffiti in Florence, Italy, reads: "Death to the criminal MacArthur," but back in New York your dissecting stanza 5, line 7 of the Kavanaughs. Don't even get me started on Harcourt Brace. 1951-1977 and trips to Brazil with Aldous Huxley for another time. After all, 811 pages of letters isn't exactly summer reading.

This selection demonstrates the range, gravity, and depth of meaning in Lowell's poetry. He is one of my favorite poets, considering all of his major poems. This edition includes selections from Lord Weary's Castle, Life Studies, For the Union Dead, and others. Edited with notes by Frank Bidart.

PO-3

Shed skin will never fit another wearer.

In For the Union Dead, Lowell balances the historical allusions and symbolism of modernism with the conversational intimacy and confessional style popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Highlights include the title poem, "Beyond the Alps," "The Old Flame," and "Caligula."½

Dear Elizabeth is an excellent, compassionate play that uses found language from letters between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. It's both expansive and minimal and captures the intensity and strength of love that is bound by friendship and admiration.

Lowell has long been one of my favorite 20th century American poets. I especially like his early work--there's something about the stern, stentorian rhythm of the verse, combined with a hardscrabble New England outlook on life, that never fails to thrill. He's a formal master, alive to his influences, who also has a keen eye for the arresting detail and a penetrating honesty. Some of his poems, like The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket, have haunted me for years.

Poemas

I have two problems reading poetry: first, 'Selected Poems' are always too long, but also rarely representative; second, 'Collected Poems' are always way too long; third, individual books of poetry always contain more crap than gem. This confirms my hard-won insights. Lowell's best poems are really, really great- in this book I recommend Beyond the Alps, During Fever, Man and Wife, Skunk Hour; Middle Age, Those Before Us, Eye and Tooth, Law, The Drinker, Jonathan Edwards, Caligula, For the Union Dead. I'll be re-reading them. If I ever have to read another poem about some poet's holiday to South America, on the other hand...

Lowell was in no a sense a professional critic in the sense that Randall Jarrell or Allen Tate were. Nevertheless, these occasional pieces are written with passion, acuity, intellectual honesty, and erudition. The book is divided into three parts. The first part is a group of critical essays, mostly on poets who were his teachers, friends, or students (he seems to have known EVERYBODY). Sometimes these become almost memoirs, but all have charm and insight. In the middle section are more wide ranging essays on various literary topics, Several of these are published here for the first time. The final section is more personal with two very extended interviews and some improbably detailed childhood/family reminiscences.½

Plugged away at this off and on over a few weeks, reading it on coffee breaks at Starbucks, lunch hour in Frist, buses. Not with my comfort reading at home in the bath. Finally finished it today while waiting for a bus at the mall.Interesting. Bits of masculine emotion and childhood I had difficulty relating to, bits of history I liked, faintly religious musings I was fascinated by, and at the very end some moments from a breakdown, and after, that justified the entire boof to me and made me understand why Alvarez considered it such an important book.The style.. I'll have to read it again just to absorb the nuances... rhymes so subtle I missed them on first reading, rhythm faint, never jarring.But much of it didn't grip me, quite.

This was a difficult read for me to get through--there were a few poems here and there that stood out as ones I'd want to come back to, but most of them were interesting enough as I pass them...but they didn't stop me in any way. The poems in these volumes that you've heard of, you've heard of for a reason...but the others fade into the background much too easily.

A book my grandmother found for me at a library sale. Contains an amazing interview with Anne Sexton in her prime.

Three plays in high-flown verse, each with a flag as portentous prop. The revised edition has more Indians in it. No, seriously.

This is Lowell before his confessional period when he was writing formal verse steeped in literary allusions and New England angst. I really liked this when I was in college. But when I tried to reread it recently, it left me cold. If you like formal poetry and are interested in the literature of New England, you might give it a try.

Lowell pushed into my head without any kind of politeness, without hesitation, and he has stuck like a burr ever since. I love his work, from Lord |Weary onwards. It was 1962 when I picked up a paperback Faber edition and found myself overwhelmed by the directness of his work. Farrar Strauss Giroux eventually got around to compiling his collected works years after Lowell died, but I thank them for it. It is worth the wait, and I reckon this great writer has immotality in his wonderful work. But who the hell knows? I could be entirely wrong....

This is a huge, academically satisfying volume with biographical notes, errata, reams of footnotes to identify every reference, image, and allegory, and, parenthetically, all the poetry of this very important American poet and man of letters. Valuable and complete.

Fine poet. Well worth reading.

NA

Edición bilingue de Amalia Rodríguez Monroy.

Michael Dirda in Wash Post's year end best books 2008 recommends. Anything MD says to consider, I consider.