Collected Poems - Softcover

Boyle, Kay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1556590393 ISBN 13: 9781556590399

Publisher: Copper Canyon Press, 1991

Synopsis

From Paris in the 1920's to the student strikes at San Francisco State in the 1960's, Kay Boyle chronicled much of the twentieth century. This collection includes all her published poetry as well as new work, which ranges from the intensely personal to the outspokenly political.

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Reviews

Showcasing a poetic career spanning 65 years, this fine volume demonstrates the strength of Boyle's ( This Is Not a Letter and Other Poems ) commitment to a political aesthetic, one that combines a wealth of nuanced knowledge with a genuine liberal spirit. Boyle adopts a number of different voices, often vernacular, setting off opposing viewpoints to fully convey the scope of her themes. Although always attuned to the myriad beauty of existence, the poet never loses sight of the plight of the disenfranchised and the oppressed. Among Boyle's causes are homosexuality ("I speak of it as a thing with a future"), homelessness ("old hags cast up against the wainscoting of Grand Central's ladies' room"), and anti-Semitism (to make a point, she declares, "I have had enough of the Jews, more than enough"). She also pays loving tribute to writers and friends who have influenced her along the way, William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore among them. Boyle adopts a pretentiously baroque style at times, but more often, she prefers to explore colloquial American speech in all of its variety.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1556590393
• ISBN 13: 9781556590399
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192