Selected Poems of Robert Penn Warren

Robert Penn Warren

LSU Press, Mar 1, 2001 - Poetry - 320 pages

John Burt’s Selected Poems of Robert Penn Warren is more broadly representative of Warren’s poetry than any previous selected gathering. More than two hundred poems from every phase grace the volume, a vehicle ideal for sampling—or soaking in—the finest of Warren’s rich output.

With each poem, Burt has carefully located the version that constitutes Warren’s final revision. His introduction gives an eloquent overview of the poet’s career, touching on every published book of verse and highlighting significant lines. A “selected” collection in the truest sense, featuring several previously unpublished pieces, this treasure is at once new and familiar.

At the heart of Warren’s poetry is a celebration of man’s intellect and imagination, his integral place within nature, and his relationship to time and the past; ultimately, joy coexists with the knowledge of life’s many mysteries, including its tragedies. Selected Poems, a generous survey and a convenient compendium, is the shining portal to this greatly gifted poet.

Contents

• Early Unpublished Poems: 1
• from ThirtySix Poems: 11
• from Eleven Poems on the Same Theme: 29
• from Selected Poems 19231943: 41
• from Brother to Dragons: 57
• from Promises To a Little Girl One Year Old in a Ruined Fortress I Sirocco: 67
• The Child Next Door: 68
• The Flower: 69
• Colder Fire: 71
• What Was the Promise That Smiled from the Maples at Evening?: 73
• Courtmartial: 74
• School Lesson Based on Word of Tragic Death of Entire Gillum Family: 77
• Summer Storm Circa 1916 and Gods Grace: 78
• Founding Fathers NineteenthCentury Style Southeast U S A: 80
• Infant Boy at Midcentury: 81
• Modification of Landscape: 82
• Brightness of Distance: 83
• Ballad of a Sweet Dream of Peace: 85
• Go It GrannyGo It Hog: 86
• Friends of the Family or Bowling a Sticky Cricket: 87
• Guess You Ought to Know Who You Are: 88
• from You Emperors and Others Two Pieces after Suetonius I Apology for Domitian: 91
• Tiberius on Capri: 92
• After Night Flight Son Reaches Bedside: 93
• from Tale of Time: 103
• from Incarnations Island of Summer I What Day Is: 117
• Where the Slow Figs Purple Sloth: 118
• Riddle in the Garden: 119
• Paul Valéry Stood on the Cliff And Confronted the Furious Energies of Nature: 120
• Treasure Hunt: 121
• The Ivy: 124
• A Place Where Nothing Is: 125
• Masts at Dawn: 126
• The Leaf: 127
• A Vision Audubon A Vision: 129
• Was Not the Lost Dauphin: 130
• The Dream He Never Knew the End Of: 131
• We Are Only Ourselves: 137
• The Sound of That Wind: 139
• Love and Knowledge: 142
• from Or Else I The Nature of a Mirror: 145
• Time as Hypnosis: 146
• Blow West Wind: 147
• Interjection: 148
• The Natural History of a Vision: 149
• Interjection: 156
• from Can I See Arcturus From Where I Stand?: 183
• from Now and Then: 191
• from Being Here: 217
• from Rumor Verified: 237
• from Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce: 251
• from Altitudes and Extensions: 259
• Index of Titles and First Lines: 279

About the author

A prodigiously diversified writer, Robert Penn Warren was the first poet laureate of the United States and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. He is the author of fifteen volumes of poetry and ten novels, including All the King’s Men, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Warren was born in Guthrie, Kentucky, in 1905 and died in Stratton, Vermont, in 1989.

John Burt is the editor of The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren and the author of four books of poems. He is professor of English at Brandeis University, where he has taught since 1983.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Selected Poems of Robert Penn Warren
• Author: Robert Penn Warren
• Editor: John D. Burt
• Publisher: LSU Press, 2001
• ISBN: 0807126772, 9780807126776
• Length: 320 pages
• Subjects: Poetry / General