New and selected poems / James Schevill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Schevill, James, 1920-2009.

Standardized Title:

Poems. Selections

Language:

English

Genre:

Fiction.

Physical Description:

xii, 127 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Athens, Ohio : Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, [2000]

Summary:

From a poetic career that spans more than half a century, and that is still producing poems as fresh and as honest as the first, comes James Schevill's New and Selected Poems, redefining the achievement of this uniquely American vision.

Schevill's poetry, acclaimed and criticized, has been rigorously selected here by the poet himself as the best and most representative of his significant output. This concise collection also contains a sampling of new poems written since the landmark Complete American Fantasies, about which the American critic M. L. Rosenthal wrote, "The book is filled with the sounds of American speech, piercing lyrics, telling satire, surprising insights into every aspect of our lives, and sheer human understanding."

From the simple lyric to the ambitious, lavish epic of the Complete American Fantasies, New and Selected Poems is a showcase of Schevill's individual talent and generous spirit.

For those coming to the work of James Schevill for the first time, this collection will be a rewarding introduction to a poetic imagination equal to the best of his generation. For those who have watched as Schevill's work has ripened over the years, it is a homecoming worth the wait.

Contents:

New Poems

Wildfire Vision 3

Nevada Bus Encounter 5

The Last Decade of de Kooning's Paintings 6

The Pale Man: Joseph Cornell 7

Kafka in Prague 9

Master of the Colloquial 12

Seeing the Wind 13

The Memory of It 14

The Continuous River 15

Threat of Invisible Wind-Voices 16

Race Car Driver 17

Playground Pickup Game in the Time of Millionaire Basketball Players 19

A Jazz Master Improvising 21

Quixote Visions 22

The Rembrandt Confrontation 27

Selected Poems

From Private Dooms and Public Destinations: Poems 1945-1962

The Will of Writing 45

In the Peaceable Kingdom a Man Sings of Love 46

Funeral 47

A Plea for Alias 48

A Guilty Father to His Daughter 49

Death of a Cat 50

Neighbors 52

The Momentary Glimpses of Women through Windows 54

The Rake's Resentment of Verdi's Falstaff 55

The Descent: Hotel Biron (The Rodin Museum) 56

Stories of the Soviet Union: June 1961 58

From Sword, Sex, and God's Word at the Philosopher's Gate 64

From The Stalingrad Elegies (1964)

The Piano on the Street 73

The Snow Woman 76

The Wound of Flatness 77

From Violence and Glory: Poems 1962-1968

Withered Daffodils 81

London Pavement Artist 82

After the Objects, a Subject 83

The Clear Angels of Dawn in the Country 84

From Ambiguous Dancers of Fame (1987)

Mexican Flower Arrangement 87

The Dreamer of Light Sings His Song of Sounds 88

Roadblock 89

Neighboring Walls 90

The Writer and the Gardener 91

The Gardener's Celebration 92

The First Heavy Rain of the Rainy Season 93

Dog-Pack 94

Frank Lloyd Wright Desperately Designing a Chair 95

The Oedipus Scream of Olivier 96

All Day Driving across Kansas 97

Love Song in Summer's Furnace Heat 98

From The Complete American Fantasies (1996)

Always We Walk through Unknown People 101

The Country Fair of Childhood 102

Hats and Ears for Charles Ives 103

Wallace Stevens at Ease with Marble Cake 106

The Peaceable Kingdom of Edward Hicks 107

Mr. and Mrs. Herman Melville at Home, Isolated in Their Rooms 108

Huck Finn at Ninety, Dying in a Chicago Boardinghouse Room 109

Bashir Was My Name 110

On the Burning of Mingus's Bass 112

What Are the Most Unusual Things You Find in Garbage Cans? 113

Kristallnacht 118

Green Frog at Roadstead, Wisconsin 120

Love, Do Not Shun the Dark Gargoyle 121

The Mathematician Thinking of Ghost Numbers 122

On the Beach Watched by a Sea Gull 123

A Screamer Discusses Methods of Screaming 124

Street Corner Signals 125

William Carlos Williams and T. S. Eliot Dancing over London Bridge in the Arizona Desert at Lake Havasu 126.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

0804010277

0804010285

OCLC:

44270440