Collected Poems, 1952-1999

Collected Poems, 1952-1999

by Robert Mezey
Collected Poems, 1952-1999

Collected Poems, 1952-1999

by Robert Mezey

Paperback(New Edition)

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Overview

This important collection of poems, which spans a career of nearly fifty years, demonstrates Robert Mezey's development as a notable stylist, thinker, and poet. Moving from adaptations of Latin and Spanish poems to prayers and lamentations, from elegies and plaints of lost love to flights of comic and ribald fancy, his poetry reaches to the extremes of human experience. The death of friends and family, one's self-betrayals and self-infatuations, the comical confusion of a worried mother, the art of a doomed Jewish child in a Nazi concentration camp—all these human dramas play out bravely against the backdrop of the beautiful, indifferent path. Mezey can portray aging and death or sing of love and nature with an accuracy of perception and an intensity of feeling heightened by formal clarity and restraint. With his razor-sharp eye for the singular detail, he describes missed opportunities and moments of human weakness and loss in gestures so real the reader will ache. In capturing the pain of religious doubt, the pangs of tenderness and elation, and the vagaries of fate so honestly, Mezey has wrought a high finish to each poem so that, in the words of Donald Justice, they become "absolute classics of calm and beauty."

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781557286123
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Publication date: 07/01/2000
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 324
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Robert Mezey has lived in Claremont, California for many years, where he is an emeritus professor at Pomona College. Lamont Prize–winning author of The Lovemaker (1960), Mezey has edited a number of books, including recent editions of Hardy and Robinson, and his poems and translations have appeared in many anthologies.

Table of Contents

Forewordxiii
Dedicationxv
from the Lovemaker
The Funeral Home3
A Bedtime Story4
Dream of Departure6
The Killing7
A Coffee House Lecture8
Corinna in Vendome10
Dream of an Invitation11
On a Theme of Sappho's12
Dark Head13
Epitaph of a Faithful Man14
The Lovemaker15
Late Winter Birthday16
To a Friend on the Day of Atonement17
Vetus Flamma18
The Wandering Jew19
Interlude: The Ballad of Charles Starkweather25
White Blossoms
Neither descendant nor lucky ancestor33
The End of an Outing34
After Hours35
You Could Say36
A Note She Might Have Left37
No Country You Remember38
The Friendship40
Night on Clinton43
The Next Thing Is Always About to Happen45
Back46
In a Little Park in Fresno47
Looking48
Reaching the Horizon50
The doe standing poised52
The Cat53
There54
Murderer's Wine55
My Mother58
A Confession60
The Underground Gardens61
Touch It63
White Blossoms64
The Mercy of Sorrow after Uri Zvi Greenberg
The Hour67
Joy68
With My God, the Smith69
Like a Girl70
The Great Sad One71
On the Equator72
There Is a Box73
How It Is74
The Valley of Men75
On the Pole76
The Door Standing Open
At the Point79
How Much Longer?80
Terezin82
Nolan84
California Farewell85
A Prayer in His Sickness87
Going for a Walk at Night88
Going to Heaven90
Pisces' Car Song91
There Goes Gatten93
Poem94
New Year's Eve in Solitude95
One Summer97
In the Soul Hour98
I Am Here99
In This Life103
An Evening105
Watching the Invisible106
Song107
I Am Beginning to Hear108
Interlude: Prose and Cons109
Small Song
To a Minor Poet of the Anthology119
The Fields of the Dead120
Looking into the Fire122
Small Song123
On the Burning Coast124
Four-Part Psalm125
Twilight under Pine Ridge127
Good Fortune by Black Mountain128
To Be a Giant129
Last Days in Salt Lake City130
Unsent Letter to Luis Salinas131
The Silence132
One of You133
Trying to Begin134
The Stream Flowing135
An Old Story137
Before and After Love139
N. W.140
Ill Lit Blues141
A Way of Saying Goodbye142
Words143
Mercy144
Of the Power of Thought145
Interlude: Clerihews and Other Sports
Clerihews149
Eurocentric Rag152
Tailgaters153
Greetings154
Glosses and Variations
Her Sparrow157
Jerry's Stretch158
All in the Family159
Ancient Epigrams160
My Stars162
Jerusalem163
Graves164
On Her Portrait165
Lament for Jonathan166
David Sings before Saul167
The Grave168
Julio Campal169
To the Likeness of a Captain in Cromwell's Armies170
Ballad of the Stranger171
Einar Tambarskelver173
Johnny Raftery174
The Golem175
Paris, 1856178
To a Forgotten Poet of 1935179
A Rose and Milton180
Not So Simple181
The Meaning of Soup182
Requiem183
Odysseus187
I Saw188
Gauguin189
from Lines for the Death of My Aunt Daniela194
Couplets205
Some Occasional Poems
A Joyful Noise235
Last Words237
Joe Simpson240
April Fourth241
Breathing You243
On the Retirement of the Scholar, Thomas Pinney244
A Retirement Poem for Dick Barnes246
Edgar247
A Prayer for the Eighth Day248
Interlude: More Clerihews249
Evening Wind and Other Poems
Evening Wind257
No Way258
Fragments of an Endless Ghazal259
Slow Sonnet261
Lais Dedicates to Aphrodite the Tools of Her Trade262
Chin Music263
To the Americans265
The Noble Rider and the Sound of Words: A Cento268
To My Friends in the Art272
One-Rime Dream273
After Ten Years274
Spring Evening by Walnut Creek275
From a Sketchbook: Fragments and Epigrams276
Owl280
A Serious Note281
Hardy284
Tea Dance at the Nautilus Hotel (1925)285
Variation on a Theme287
Notes291
Index of Titles and First Lines297
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