Morning Poems - Hardcover

Bly, Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060182512 ISBN 13: 9780060182519

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1997

Synopsis

Robert Bly's new work creates a sort of poem full of humor that readers have never seen from him before. Often personal and autobiographical, the poems in this collection include meditations on the art of poetry ("Rereading Silence in the Snowy Fields"), on Bly's boyhood on a Minnesota farm ("What the Animals Paid"), on myths and stories that shape our mutual world ("We're All in This Story"), as well as a sequence of poems on Wallace Stevens and meditations on aging and facing death. Written in the discipline of a poem each day, the poems have some of the freshness of morning in them.

The Morning Poems is Bly at his best, an important reminder of why he is one of America's most widely read and intensely admired poets.

Excerpt from "Loving God in the Kitchen Pans":

A lamp pours light into the room, and it is your

Room, as you write poems there. You never

Tire of the curving lines, and the freedom of the sounds,

And the demons peering around the molding.

About this title

Review:

Robert Bly's Morning Poems is a window into the life of the mind, the poetic process, and the beautifully and poignantly prosaic way our lives pass as a series of (mostly) ordinary days. The poems are soft-spoken and unassuming, each written as a component of Bly's morning ritual. "A Week of Poems at Bennington," for example, includes meditations on such lofty subjects as "The Dog's Ears" and "What the Buttocks Think." At the same time, the poems often address weighty matters: aging, friendship, and death. It is one of Bly's poetic virtues that he is able to write about such subjects (following the example of William Stafford) with a delicate and unpretentious touch. Consider the homespun phrasing and deeply felt acceptance of life's twists and turns in "The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog": I never intended to have this life, believe me-- / it just happened. You know how dogs turn up / At a farm, and they wag but can't explain. / It's good if you can accept your life..."

About the Author:

Robert Bly's books of poetry include The Night Abraham Called to the Stars and My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy. His awards include the National Book Award for poetry and two Guggenheims. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0060182512
• ISBN 13: 9780060182519
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 128