washington selections kavanaughs imitations

books:

Life Studies and For the Union Dead (FSG Classics)

8 reviews
Robert Lowell

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007

"For the Union Dead" - A Timeless Civil War Poem
I read this poem again on Martin Luther King Day, a fitting day for this poem, a tribute to the Union dead of the Civil War and a particular remembrance of the black soldiers who wore the uniform of the Union-- particularly of the Massachusetts 54th Regiment (made famous to non-Civil War students by the movie Glory several years ago). The 54th Massachusetts was the first black regiment to ...

Collected Poems

8 reviews
Robert Lowell

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007

In His Exasperating Wholeness
The publication of this book was doubtless necessary to begin understanding Lowell correctly. Creator and destroyer, careful wordsmith and subversive deconstructor, encountering just one of his volumes along the strange parabola of his career can be confusing. Lowell always set out to carefully craft each of them, with special attention to the arrangement of his resonant poems and their slow, ...

Selected Poems: Expanded Edition: Including selections from Day by Day

3 reviews
Robert Lowell

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007

Shared reading experience
This is a good book. The revised edition (which this is) contains a wide and well-chosen selection of Lowell's poetry. He notes in the foreword that he tried to choose possible sequences rather than just greatest hits out of context. This effort is visible and the book flows together like almost one book instead of a career's overview. What was interesting for me as I read it was that I was ...

The Letters of Robert Lowell

4 reviews
Robert Lowell

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007

Wonderful letters from a now-distant past
This big collection of letters is remarkable in so many ways. Lowell was a tireless and prolific correspondent and never dull. He expressed love, wonder, and a surprisingly cheerful interest in mundane things and events. He wrote, for example, to Elizabeth Bishop, congratulating her (somewhat self-consciously) on her weight loss, among many other achievements. To Elizabeth Hardwick (second of his ...

Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell

1 review
Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008

Love of Poetry
This correspondence is one long (nearly a thousand pages) love letter between two of the best poets of their generation. Both Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell were personally tortured by their demons (her was alcohol, his was manic-depression) and failed relationships. Though never lovers, their's was a marriage of the minds via the mail for thirty years. It is helpful, though not vital, that ...

Imitations

1 review
Robert Lowell

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990

The must-have collection of translations
Robert Lowell has had dramatic upswings and downswings in his reputation as a poet. Right now, thanks to the release of his COLLECTED POEMS, edited by Frank Bidart, he is experiencing another upswing. What has never suffered in esteem is this collection, IMITATIONS, the most influencial of its type since Ezra Pound's TRANSLATIONS. Lowell has, in his own words, "been reckless with literal ...

Lord Weary's Castle: The Mills of the Kavanaughs (Harvest/Hbj Book)

3 reviews
Robert Lowell

Harvest Books, 1968

Lord Weary's Castle: Challenging and obscure. The Mills of the Kavanaughs: Less complex.
Lord Weary's Castle (awarded Pulitzer Prize of Poetry in 1947) and The Mills of the Kavanaughs established Robert Lowell's early fame. Literary critics widely praised Lowell for his technical brilliance, metrical complexity, and verbal ambiguity - perhaps explaining why Lowell's work is so often challenging, even obscure. I found reading Lord Weary's Castle is not unalike from studying ...

Notebook: Poems

1 review
Robert Lowell

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995

It's Been Years, but the residue...
...of this brilliant volume persists in mind. After all these months spent buried in other books, it's incredible that such lines as "off ering our leathery love/ we're fifty, and free!" stick with me. Lowell's descriptions of souls in Hell is unsettling, while he wears one vital influence (Fugitive John Crowe Ransom), while also tackling world unrest. I will certainly be rereading this book. ...

Reptiles of Washington and Oregon (Trailside)
Robert M. Storm, Herbert A. Brown, ...

Seattle Audubon Society, 1995

Day by Day

1 review
Robert Lowell

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978

One of the Best, Definitely a Re-read
I got this book in from the library, read it, found a many gems and was drawn to buy it. If you want a mature Lowell, you'll find it here. Includes 'Epilogue' and many others that will surely grow on you if not initially stun you with the epiphanic verse and strong insight. Truly, a pleasure.

New Year in Cuba: Mary Gardner Lowell's Travel Diary, 1831-1832 (New England Diary Series)

2 reviews
Mary Garnder Lowell

Northeastern, 2003

Rare document, wonderful writer
I first read this journal in its original format: a handwritten, early-19th-century document now kept in the archives at the Massachusetts Historical Society. I loved it on the first reading--Lowell is an articulate, insightful writer who recorded this journey for her friends and family back home in Boston. (Just as we take snapshots of a trip, 19th-century travelers wrote journals.) Now we can ...

search for books
correspondence, imitations, kavanaughs, selections, washington

Impressum / about us