In the Western Night: Collected Poems, 1965-1990

by Frank Bidart

Overview

In the Western Night brings together in one volume all of the poems to date, including many previously unpublished poems, of one of the most exciting and gifted poets writing today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374522711
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	06/01/1991
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.57(d)

About the Author

Frank Bidart is the author of a dozen collections of poetry, including Metaphysical Dog, Watching the Spring Festival, Star Dust, Desire, and In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965–1990. He has won many prizes, including the Wallace Stevens Award, the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His book Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016 won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize and the 2017 National Book Award. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

	In the Western Night (1990)
	To the Dead	3
	Dark Night	5
	In the Western Night	7
	Poem in the Stanza of the "Rubaiyat"	12
	In the Ruins	13
	Guilty of Dust	14
	The Sacrifice (1983)
	The War of Vaslav Nijinsky	21
	For Mary Ann Youngren	50
	Catullus: Odi et amo	52
	Confessional	53
	The Sacrifice	75
	Genesis 1-2:4	77
	The Book of the Body (1977)
	The Arc	85
	Happy Birthday	94
	Elegy	96
	The Book of the Body	106
	Ellen West	109
	Golden State (1973)
Part 1
	Herbert White	127
	Self-Portrait, 1969	132
Part 2
	California Plush	135
	Book of Life	144
	Golden State	149
Part 3
	Vergil Aeneid 1.1-33	167
	After Catullus	169
	To My Father	170
	Another Life	171
	The First Hour of the Night (1990)
	Now In Your Hand	177
	You remain	179
	By These Waters	180
	Long and Short Lines	181
	Book of Night	182
	The First Hour of the Night	183
	Appendix
	An Interview--With Mark Halliday	223
	Notes	243

Editorial Reviews

In the Western Night" establishes Frank Bidart's place among this century's most emotionally articular poets. His fine earlier books, published between 1973 and 1983, are here, surroudned by a selection of equally impressive newer pieces. Taken together, they constitute a hauntingly raw voice that finds itself through an exhilarating array of prosodic techniques. More than most of his post-confessional contemporaries, Bidart is unafraid of passion, and willing to harness his passion to words and structures...His voice, and the voices in his dramatic monologues, are unrelentingly curious and honest; and yet they inevitably back up against the greatest of mysteries.” —Matthew Gilbert, The Boston Globe

“In the supreme poems, Bidart's spiritual force makes me...yield to the authority of the voice. "Ellen West" is a heartbreaking act of sympathy.” —Denis Donoghue, The New Republic

“Achieves a grandeur of vision few poets nowadays can match.” —Alan Shapiro, Chicago Tribune

From the Publisher