The Collected Poems of John Ciardi - Softcover

Ciardi, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557284490 ISBN 13: 9781557284495

Publisher: University of Arkansas Press, 1997

Synopsis

Presents a collection of 450 poems that originally appeared in twenty individual volumes published between 1940 and 1993

About this title

From Booklist

In his introduction, editor Edward Cifelli tells readers to "expect extraordinary range," an understatement Ciardi himself would greatly have appreciated. The collection contains 450 poems, selected from 20 books, beginning with Homeward to America, published in 1940 when Ciardi was all of 24 years old, to the last book published during his lifetime, The Birds of Pompeii (1985), on through three posthumously published volumes; each and every poem testifies to the vitality of Ciardi's literary gifts. A teacher at Harvard and Rutgers, renowned translator of Dante, and poetry editor for the Saturday Review from 1956 through 1972, Ciardi lived, breathed, and no doubt dreamed language. He also possessed a taxonomic eye and the sort of fluid concentration required for transforming observation and experience into philosophy and art. And Ciardi was in it for the long haul, writing about everything from war to birdsong, love, and death with grace, wit, irony, and unceasing tenderness. Donna Seaman

From Library Journal

Ciardi, the winner of many awards and honors and a highly esteemed translator of Dante, was one of America's premier modern poets of the latter half of this century. This volume supersedes the earlier Selected Poems (1984), providing a vastly more comprehensive sampling of Ciardi's work: 450 poems culled from over 20 individual volumes published between 1940 and 1993. In it we find testimony to Ciardi's desire to achieve not "a voice," a style formed to forward an author's individuality, but "voice"?one that is determined by the externals the poet addresses. If there is "a voice" present in Ciardi's work, it does not appear in any single poem but in what he calls the "total poem of all the others put together...his personality." Highly recommended for all libraries.?Thomas F. Merrill, Univ. of Delaware, Newark
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 1557284490
• ISBN 13: 9781557284495
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 618