Poems from Ish River country : collected poems and translations / Robert Sund.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sund, Robert, 1929-2001.

Contributor:

Gotham Book Mart Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rivers--Washington (State)--Poetry.

Rivers.

Poetry of places--Washington (State).

Poetry of places.

Washington (State).

Washington (State)--Poetry.

Northwest, Pacific--Poetry.

Northwest, Pacific.

Pacific Northwest.

Genre:

Poetry.

Penn Provenance:

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

Physical Description:

257 pages : portrait ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : Shoemaker & Hoard ; [Berkeley, Calif.] : Distributed by Publishers Group West, [2004]

Summary:

Poems from Ish River Country collects the complete poems of poet, painter, and calligrapher Robert Sund. His few published volumes of poetry and frequent public readings established his reputation as one of the most distinctive poetic voices of the Pacific Northwest, where he enjoyed a tremendous popularity. With short, imagistic poems, in the tradition of William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Rexroth, he distills the essence of the Northwest landscape and in plain speech celebrates themes of family, friendship, work and quiet contemplation.

Included here are the poet's long out of print and award-winning collections, Bunch Grass, which gave literary voice to the rolling wheat country east of the Cascade Mountains in his native Washington State, and Ish River, which celebrated the misty, riverine landscape of the Puget Sound country, a place, in the poet's words, "between two mountain ranges where / many rivers / run down to an inland sea." But the greater part of this collection contains poems unpublished during the poet's lifetime or published only in very limited editions. There is also a generous selection of his translations, from Issa, Buson, Basho, and most especially from the Swedish poet Rabbe Enckell, with whom Sund felt a close affinity.

Contents:

Bunch Grass (1969)

"In wheat country"

"Dark leaves lift in light wind"

"Women who marry into wheat"

"In a landscape that desperately needs color"

"I sit on a rickety bench just outside"

"Looking out through the wide elevator doors"

"Today, instead of sleeping through the noon hour"

"Star Thistle, Jim Hill Mustard, White Tops"

"A dusty black beetle"

"Looking absurd as a near-sighted scholar"

"Harvest at its peak"

"At the top of the elevator"

"A bee thumps against the dusty window"

"First there is silence"

"The rolling hills of wheat expect nothing"

"At five-thirty in the afternoon"

"After each truck fine dust settles on the floor"

"America is a strange man"

"There's a beetle walking on the ground below me"

"Beneath an intensely hot sun"

"Between incoming trucks"

"With a sandwich"

"Just outside the elevator"

"It's surprising how many"

"Late afternoon, there's a restlessness in the air"

"From the southwest"

"Cursing"

"A dirt-crusted green jeep turns off the highway"

"Seven o'clock"

"Through a wide field of stubble"

"Now as the sun sets, cricket songs"

"There is no wind"

"Two white"

"Five magpies"

"A wheat rancher drives up"

"Each day fewer fields remain"

"The ranchers are selling their wheat early this year"

"A fieldmouse"

"Afternoon"

"At one of the ranches there's a hand"

"What day is it now?"

"Blooming"

"In Walla Walla, cool streams"

"Near me"

"Late tonight"

"Next week I go".

Local Notes:

Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.

ISBN:

1593760426

9781593760427

OCLC:

55286058

Online:

Publisher description