Levertov, Denise. Here and Now. SanFrancisco, City Lights, 1957.
Born and raised in England, Here and Now was Levertov’s first book to be published in America. Published as number six in Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s popular and populist Pocket Poet Series it introduced the new poet to an entirely different audience. The work in this volume is heavily influenced by William Carlos Williams and some of the Black Mountain poets (primarily Creeley). In general the poems are sweet and tender, full of acute perceptions and thoughts:
“You have my
attention: which is
a tenderness, beyond
what I may say. And I have
your constancy to
something beyond myself.”
Wilbur, Richard. The Beautiful Changes. Harcourt, Brace and World, 1947.
Ceremony and Other Poems. New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1950.
Advice to a Prophet. New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1961.
Waking to Sleep. New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969.
Along with the Pulitzer Prize winning Things of this World (1956), these four volumes secured Wilbur’s reputation as a master poet. The poems in these books are experimentally formal, and evince a quietness of sprit and sweetness of heart. Together they comprise a formidable body of work on which the poet was to build. For a good overview of Wilbur’s work see the Poetry Foundation’s Archive: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=7411
Chinese Literature
Nos. 1,3,5-7,10-12. Peking Foreign Language Publications, 1973-1974.
We have nine issues of this magazine of Chinese writing, including poetry, “reportage” and art. The magazine was published by the Foreign Language Press in Peking and is in English. The first issue includes the text of Azalea Mountain (a revolutionary modern Peking Opera) and all the issues are upbeat and positive in their portrayal of modern Communist China. Truly a period piece with its own brand of charm.
Lux, Thomas. Like a Wide Anvil from the Moon the Light. New York, Black Market Books, 1980.
The Library’s collection of thousands of chapbooks have been in storage for years, and include examples of fine printing as well as more simple minimalist chapbooks. Poet Thomas Lux’s volume is a good example of the later type. Lux now teaches at Georgia Tech, after many years of work at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York. He has published 11 volumes of poetry and several chapbooks including Like a Wide Anvil from the Moon the Light, which consists of 20 poems, each one comprising 23 lines. The poems are about life in the country, or on a farm and about life in dreams and daydreams. The are touched by surrealism. They are enchanted.
“Like a wide anvil from the moon the light
On the cold radiator and all the windows in a row
Along the spine close-zeroes winding tight.
And to make the rattlesnakes feel at home?:
A private cactus farm. There’s not an eek’s chance
Of getting out of here.”
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