Toward the distant islands : new & selected poems / Hayden Carruth ; edited and with an introduction by Sam Hamill.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carruth, Hayden, 1921-2008.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Hamill, Sam, 1943-2018.

Language:

English

Genre:

Poetry.

Penn Provenance:

Gotham Book Mart (former owner) (Gotham Book Mart Collection copy)

Physical Description:

xiv, 181 pages ; 20 cm

Place of Publication:

Port Townsend, Wash. : Copper Canyon Press, [2006]

Summary:

This "portable Carruth" gathers the essential poems from a major American poet. Toward the Distant Islands presents lyrics, short and long narratives, comic, meditative, erotic poems, and reflections on the natural world. Ever engaged with radical politics, rural poverty, and the poet's cultural responsibility, Carruth's work is alive with a rare courage and clear eyed conviction. Over his prolific and celebrated writing career, Hayden Carruth has been one of the most rigorous and inventive technicians of a generation that has been acknowledged for its brilliance and variety. Like the jazz he so loves, his poetry ranges from the formal to the spontaneous, from local speech to righteous oratory, from sublime complexity to elegant understatement. This volume features an introduction by Carruth's longtime friend and editor, Sam Hamill.

Contents:

From The Crow and the Heart (1959)

The Buddhist Painter Prepares to Paint 3

Reflexive 6

November: Indian Summer 7

From The Norfolk Poems of Hayden Carruth (1962)

Purana, Meaning Once Upon a Time 11

Naming for Love 13

Adolf Eichmann 15

From Nothing for Tigers (1965)

Burning Dawn 19

Freedom and Discipline 20

From The Clay Hill Anthology (1970)

Selected Haiku 25

From From Snow and Rock, from Chaos (1973)

Concerning Necessity 29

The Ravine 31

Once More 32

The Cows at Night 34

Emergency Haying 36

The Birds of Vietnam 39

Abandoned Ranch, Big Bend 42

From Brothers, I Loved You All (1978)

The Loon on Forrester's Pond 45

August First 47

Essay 49

The Joy and Agony of Improvisation 50

Essay on Stone 52

John Dryden 55

Johnny Spain's White Heifer 60

Marshall Washer 64

The Poet 73

From If You Call This Cry a Song (1983)

On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam 77

Regarding Chainsaws 79

Song of the Two Crows 83

From The Oldest Killed Lake in North America (1985)

The Oldest Killed Lake in North America 89

From Tell Me Again How the White Heron Rises and Flies Across the Nacreous River at Twilight Toward the Distant Islands (1989)

Sometimes When Lovers Lie Quietly Together, Unexpectedly One of Them Will Feel the Other's Pulse 93

The Impossible Indispensability of the Ars Poetica 94

Of Distress Being Humiliated by the Classical Chinese Poets 96

Survival as Tao, Beginning at 5:00 A.M. 97

"Sure," said Benny Goodman 99

From Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991 (1992) New Poems (1986-1991)

Pa McCabe 103

Pray You Young Woman 106

From Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey: Poems, 1991-1995 (1996)

Birthday Cake 111

Testament 113

Ecstasy 115

Prepare 116

From Doctor Jazz (2001)

Because I Am 121

The Sound 122

Dearest M- 123

Saturday Morning in Mundane Munnsville 138

Saturday Was the First Day of the New Millennium 139

Elegance 140

Letter to Denise 141

The New Quarry 142

New Poems (2001-2005)

Springtime, 1998 145

Selected Haiku 147

Fanfare for the Common Man, No. 2 151

Adoration Is Not Irrelevant 152

Two Poets 154

Navel 155

On Being Marginalized 156

Complaint and Petition 157

The Little Girl Who Learned the Saving Way 159

Two White Stones 160

February Morning 162

Small Fundamental Essay 164

A Few Dilapidated Arias 165.

ISBN:

1556592361

OCLC:

61881105