The Penguin Book of American Verse

by Geoffrey Moore

  a piece of cloth from

  a sailor’s suit. This

  replaces the need for

  dazzling plumage;

  in fact, in the past

  fifty million years

  the male has grown

  considerably duller,

  nor can he sing well.

  The female, though,

  asks little of him –

  the blue satisfies her

  completely, has

  a magical effect

  on her. When she returns

  from her day of

  gossip and shopping,

  she sees he has found her

  a new shred of blue foil:

  for this she rewards him

  with her dark body,

  the stars turn slowly

  in the blue foil beside them

  like the eyes of a mild savior.

  Ai (Florence Ogawa) 1947–2010

  Woman

  The adobe walls of the house

  clutch the noon heat in tin fists

  and while bathing, I fan my breasts,

  watching the nipples harden.

  I pinch them, feeling nothing, but wanting to,

  and shift my weight from left buttock to right,

  while the water circling my waist tightens,

  as if you had commanded it.

  I stand up, spreading my legs apart,

  ready to release the next ribbon of blood.

  All right. You want me now, this way.

  I haven’t locked the door.

  My swollen belly feels only its heaviness,

  you would weigh less than the pain

  chipping away at my navel with an ice pick of muscle,

  I can carry you.

  The blood, halved and thinned, rolls down my legs,

  cupping each foot in a red stirrup

  and I am riding that invisible horse,

  the same one my mother rode.

  It’s hungry, it has to be fed,

  the last man couldn’t, can you?

  The Sweet

  The man steps in out of the blizzard with his Klootch,

  his Eskimo prostitute and the room heats up, as they

  cross the floor. I know he is dying and I spin a half

  dollar around on the bar, then slide my eyes over the woman.

  She has a seal’s body. Her face is a violet in the center

  of the moon. The half dollar falls over, I remind myself

  that to love a Klootch is always to be filled with emptiness,

  turn and lift my glass.

  I shake my head, drink. When I hear retreating footsteps,

  I turn. The man stands at the door, facing me. His hand

  gropes out, as the woman backs off and I see the Northern

  Lights flare up in his eyes, before he stumbles and falls.

  The woman leans back against the wall. I pick up the half

  dollar, spin it around again and go to her. We walk out

  into the darkness and I am cold as I squeeze her buttocks,

  her blue, dwarf stars.

  Select Bibliography of Poetry and Criticism

  AI

  Cruelty (1973); Killing Floor (1979); Sin (1986).

  ALTA

  Freedom’s in Sight (1969); Letters to Women (1970); Song of the Wife, Song of the Mistress (1971); Burn This and Memorize Yourself (1971); No Visible Means of Support (1971); I am not a Practising Angel (1974); The Shameless Hussy (1980).

  A.R. AMMONS

  Ommateum (1955); Expressions of Sea Level (1964); Corsons Inlet (1965); Tape for the Turn of Year (1965); Northfield Poems (1966); Selected Poems (1968); Uplands (1970); Briefings (1971); Collected Poems, 1931–1971 (1972); Sphere: The Form of a Motion (1974); Diversifications (1975); Selected Poems: 1951–1977 (1977); The Snow Poems (1977); Highgate Road (1978); Six-Piece Suite (1979); Selected Longer Poems (1980); A Coast of Trees (1981); Worldly Hopes: Poems (1982); Lake Effect Country: Poems (1983); Selected Poems: Expanded Edition (1986); Sumerian Vistas: Poems (1987).

  Criticism:

  Diacritics (A. R. Ammons Issue) (1974); Alan Holder, A. R. Ammons (1978).

  JOHN ASHBERY

  Turandot and Other Poems (1953); Some Trees (1956); The Poems (1960); The Tennis Court Oath (1962); Rivers and Mountains (1966); Selected Poems (1967); Fragment (1969); The Double Dream of Spring (1970); Three Poems (1972); Self portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975); The Vermont Journal (1975); Houseboat Days (1977); As we Know (1979); Shadow Train (1981); A Wave (1984); Selected Poems (1985); April Galleons (1987).

  Criticism:

  David K. Kermani, John Ashbery: A Comprehensive Bibliography (1976); David Lehman, ed., John Ashhery (1979); Beyond Amazement (1980); David Shapiro, John Ashbery: An Introduction to the Poetry (1979).

  IMAMU AMIRI BARAKA (LEROI JONES)

  Preface to A Twenty Volume Suicide Note (1962); The Dead Lecturer (1965); Black Art (1966); Black Magic Poetry 1961–1967 (1967); It’s Nation Time (1970); Spirit Reach (1972); Afrikan Revolution (1973); Hard Facts (1976); Selected Poetry (1979); AM/TRAK (1979); Reggae or Not! (1981); Thoughts For You! (1984).

  Criticism:

  K. W. Benston, Baraka: The Renegade and the Mask (1976); ed., Imamu Amiri Baraka: A Collection of Critical Essays (1978); Letitia Dace, LeRoi Jones (Imamu Amiri Baraka): A Checklist of works by and about him (1971); Theodore R. Hudson, From LeRoi Jones to Amiri Baraka, The Literary Works (1973).

  JOEL BARLOW

  The Vision of Columbus (1787); The Hasty-Pudding (1796); The Columbiad (1807).

  Criticism:

  A. L. Ford, Joel Barlow (1972); Leon Howard, The Vision of Joel Barlow (1937); J. L. Woodress. A Yankee Odyssey: The Life of Joel Barlow (1958).

  JOHN BERRYMAN

  Poems (1942); The Dispossessed (1948); Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (1956); His Thought Made Pockets & the Plane Buckt (1958); 77 Dream Songs (1964); Berryman’s Sonnets (1967); Short Poems (1967); His Toy, His Dream, His Rest (1968); The Dream Songs (1969); Love & Fame (1970); Delusions, Etc. (1972); Selected Poems (1972); Henry’s Fate and other Poems (1977); Collected Poems (1986).

  Criticism:

  Gary Q. Arpin, The Poetry of John Berryman (1977); J. Connarroe, John Berryman (1977); John Haffenden, John Berryman: A Critical Commentary (1980); The Life of John Berryman (1982); Richard J. Kelly, John Berryman: A Checklist (1972); James M. Linebarger, John Berryman (1974); William J. Martz, John Berryman (1969); Ernest C. Stefanik, John Berryman: A Descriptive Bibliography (1974).

  ELIZABETH BISHOP

  North and South (1946); Poems: North and South – A Cold Spring (1955); Questions of Travel (1965); Selected Poems (1967); The Ballad of the Burglar of Babylon (1968); The Complete Poems (1969); Poem (1973); Geography III (1978); Complete Poems: 1927–1979 (1983)

  Criticism:

  Ann Stevenson, Elizabeth Bishop (1966); Elizabeth Bishop Issue of World Literature Today (1977).

  ROBERT BLY

  Silence in the Snowy Fields (1962, rev. 1967); The Light Around the Body (1967); The Morning Glory (1969); Teeth-Mother Naked at Last (1970); The Shadow-Mothers (1970); Jumping out of Bed (1972); Sleepers Joining Hands (1972); Point Reyes Poems (1974); Grass from Two Years, Lets Leave (1975); Old Man Rubbing his Eyes (1975); This Body is made of Camphor and Gopherwood (1977); This Tree will be here for a Thousand Years (1979); Talking All Morning (1980); Finding an Old Ant Mansion (1981); The Man in the Black Coat Turns (1981); Eight Stages of Translation (1983); Four Ramages (1983); Out of the Rolling Ocean and other Love Poems (1984); Loving a Woman in Two Worlds (1985); Selected Poems (1986).

  Criticism:

  I. Friberg, Moving Inward: A Study of Robert Bly’s Poetry (1977).

  ANNE BRADSTREET

  The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America: Or Severall Poems, Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning, Full of Delight (1650); Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning, Full of Delight (1678).

  Standard Editions:

  J.
H. Ellis, ed., The Works of Anne Bradstreet in Prose and Verse (1867); E. E. Hopkins, ed., The Poems of Mrs Anne Bradstreet (1612–1672) Together with Her Prose Remains (1897).

  Criticism:

  J. K. Piercy, Anne Bradstreet (1965); A. Stanford, Anne Bradstreet: The Worldly Puritan (1975); E. W. White, Anne Bradstreet: ‘The Tenth Muse’ (1972).

  RICHARD EMIL BRAUN

  Companions to Your Doom (1961); Children Passing (1962); Bad Land (1971); The Foreclosure (1972).

  Criticism:

  Eric Homberger, The Art of the Real (1977).

  GWENDOLYN BROOKS

  A Street in Bronzeville (1945); Annie Allen (1949); Bronzeville Boys and Girls (1956); Selected Poems (1963); In the Mecca (1968); Riot (1970); Family Pictures (1971); The World of Gwendolyn Brooks (1971); Aloneness (1972); Aurora (1972); Beckonings (1972); The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves (1974); To Disembark (1981); The Near-Johannesburg Boy and Other Poems (1986).

  Criticism:

  Harry B. Shaw, Gwendolyn Brooks (1980).

  WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

  Poems (1821); Poems (1832); Poems (1836); The Fountain and Other Poems (1842); Poems (1854); Thirty Poems (1864); Poems (1871); Poems (1875, 3 vols.).

  Criticism:

  W. A. Bradley, William Cullen Bryant (1905); A. F. McLean, Jr, William Cullen Bryant (1964).

  CHARLES BUKOWSKI

  Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail (1960); Longshot Pomes for Broke-Players (1962); Run with the Hunted (1962); It Catches My Heart in Its Hands (1963); Cold Dogs in the Courtyard (1965); Crucifix in a Deathhand (1965); At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968); Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8-Story Window (1968); A Bukowski Sampler (1969); Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969); Fire Station (1970); Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972); Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974); Love is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974–1977 (1977); Play the Piano Drunk like a Percussion Instrument until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979); Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981); War All The Time (1984); You Get So Alone at Times It Just Makes Sense (1986); The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poetry (1988).

  Criticism:

  Sanford Dorbin, A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski (1969); Hugh Fox, Charles Bukowski: A Critical and Bibliographical study (1968).

  GREGORY CORSO

  The Vestal Lady on Brattle (1955); Gasoline (1958); Bomb (1958); The Happy Birthday of Death (1960); Long Live Man (1962); Selected Poems (1962); The Mutation of the Spirit (1964); There Is Yet Time to Run Back Through Life and Expiate All That’s Been Sadly Done (1965); Elegiac Feelings American (1970); Egyptian Cross (1971); Aukh (1971); The Night last Night was at its Highest (1972); Earth Egg (1974); Herald of the Autochthonic Spirit (1982).

  Criticism:

  Gavin Selerie, ed., The Riverside Interviews, No. 3 (1982).

  HART CRANE

  White Buildings (1926); The Bridge (1930); Collected Poems (1933); Seven Lyrics (1966); The Complete Poems and Selected Letters and Prose (1966); Ten Unpublished Poems (1972).

  Criticism:

  R. W. Butterfield, The Broken Arc: A Study of Hart Crane (1969); L. S. Dembo, Hart Crane’s Sanskrit Charge: A Study of The Bridge (1960); Samuel Hazo, Hart Crane: An Introduction and Interpretation (1963); Smithereened Apart: A Critique of Hart Crane (1977); Hilton Landry, A Concordance to the Poems of Hart Crane (1973); Gary Lane, A Concordance to the Poems of Hart Crane (1972); R. W. B. Lewis, The Poetry of Hart Crane: A Critical Study (1967); Herbert A. Leibowitz, Hart Crane: An Introduction to the Poetry (1968); Robert L. Perry, The Shared Vision of Waldo Frank and Hart Crane (1966); Vincent Quinn, Hart Crane (1963); Joseph Schwartz and Robert C. Schweik, eds., Hart Crane: A Descriptive Bibliography (1972); Monroe K. Spears, Hart Crane (1965); R. P. Sugg, Hart Crane’s ‘The Bridge’ (1977); Margaret Dickie Uroff, Hart Crane: The Patterns of his Poetry (1974).

  STEPHEN CRANE

  The Black Riders (1895); War Is Kind (1899).

  Criticism:

  J. Berryman, Stephen Crane (1975); D. G. Hoffman, The Poetry of Stephen Crane (1957); R. W. Stallman, Stephen Crane: A Biography (1968).

  RBERT CREELEY

  Le Fou (1952); The Immoral Proposition (1953); The Kind of Act of (1953); All That Is Lovely in Men (1955); If You (1956); The Whip (1957); A Form of Woman (1959); For Love: Poems 1950–1960 (1962); Poems 1950–1965 (1966); Words: Poems (1967); The Finger (1968, rev. 1970); The Charm: Early and Uncollected Poems (1968); 5 Numbers (1969); Divisions and Other Early Poems (1969); Pieces (1969); As Now It Would Be Snow (1970); St Martin’s (1971); Gold Diggers (1972): A Day Book (1972); Thirty Things (1974); Selected Poems (1976); Away (1976); Hello (1978); Later: New Poems (1979) Echoes (1982); Collected Poems 1945–1973 (1982); Mirrors (1983); A Calendar: Twelve Poems (1984); Memories (1984); Memory Gardens (1986); The Company (1988).

  Criticism:

  Cynthia Edelberg, Robert Creeley’s Poetry (1978); Arthur Ford, Robert Creeley (1978); Mary Novik, Robert Creeley: An Inventory (1974); William V. Spanos, ed., Robert Creeley: A Gathering, Boundary 2 (Spring/Fall 1978); Warren Tallman, Three Essays on Robert Creeley (1974).

  COUNTEE CULLEN

  Color (1925); Copper Sun (1927); The Black Christ (1929); The Medea (1935); On These I Stand (1947).

  Criticism:

  Blanche E. Ferguson, Countee Cullen and the Negro Renaissance (1966); Margaret Perry, A Bio-Bibliography of Countee Cullen (1971).

  E. E. CUMMINGS

  Tulips and Chimneys (1923); & (1925); is 5 (1926);, CIOPW (1931); ViVa (1931); no thanks (1935); One Over Twenty (1936); Collected Poems (1938); 50 Poems (1940); 1 Χ 1 (1944); XAIPE: 71 Poems (1950); Poems, 1923–1954 (1954); 95 Poems (1958); 100 Selected Poems (1959); 73 Poems (1963); Complete Poems (1973).

  Criticism:

  S. V. Baum, ed., E∑TI: eec: E. E. Cummings and The Critics (1962); Norman Friedman, E. E. Cummings: The Art of His Poetry (1960), E. E. Cummings: The Growth of a Writer (1964), (ed.), E. E. Cummings: A Collection of Critical Essays (1972); G. Lane, I Am: A Study of E, E. Cummings’ Poems (1976); Barry A. Marks, E. E. Cummings (1964); Guy L. Rotella, E. E. Cummings: A Reference Guide (1979); Eve Triem, E. E. Cummings (1969); Robert E. Wegner, The Poetry and Prose of E. E. Cummings (1965).

  EMILY DICKINSON

  Poems (1890); Poems (1891); Poems (1896); The Single Hound (1914); Complete Poems (1924); Further Poems (1929); Poems of Emily Dickinson (1930); Unpublished Poems (1935); Bolts of Melody (1945); Poems of Emily Dickinson (3 vols, 1955); Complete Poems (1960).

  Criticism:

  Charles R. Anderson, Emily Dickinson’s Poetry: Stairway of Surprise (1960); Millicent Todd Bingham, Ancestor’s Brocades: The Literary Discovery of Emily Dickinson (1945); Willis J. Buckingham, ed., Emily Dickinson, an Annotated Bibliography (1970); Sharon Cameron, Lyric Time: Dickinson and the Limits of Genre (1979); Jack L. Capps, Emily Dickinson’s Reading, 1836–1886 (1966); Richard Chase, Emily Dickinson (1951); Denis Donoghue, Emily Dickinson (1969); Ralph W. Franklin, The Editing of Emily Dickinson (1967); Albert J. Gelpi, Emily Dickinson: The Mind of the Poet (1965); Clark Griffith, The Long Shadow: Emily Dickinson’s Tragic Poetry (1964); Margaret Homans, Women Writers and Poetic Identity (1980); Inder Nath Kher, The Landscape of Absence: Emily Dickinson’s Poetry (1974); David Porter, Dickinson: The Modern Idiom (1981); Stanford P. Rosenbaum, ed., A Concordance to the Poems of Emily Dickinson (1964); R. B. Sewall, ed., Emily Dickinson: A Collection of Critical Essays (1963); W. R. Sherwood, Circumference and Circumstance: Stages in the Mind and Art of Emily Dickinson (1968); R. Weisbuch, Emily Dickinson’s Poetry (1975).

  H.D. (HILDA DOOLITTLE)

  Sea Garden (1916); Hymen (1921); Heliodora and Other Poems (1924); Collected Poems (1925); Red Roses for Bronze (1931); The Walls Do Not Fall (1944); Tributeto Angels (1945); The Flowering of the Rod (1946); By Avon River (1949); Selected Poems (1957); Helen in Egypt (1961); Hermetic Definition (1972); Trilogy (1973); The Poet and the Dancer (1975).

  Criticism:

  Vincent Quinn, H.D. (1967); Thomas B. Swann, The Cl
assical World of H.D. (1962).

  EDWARD DORN

  The Newly Fallen (1961); From Gloucester Out (1964); Hands Up! (1964); Idaho Out (1965); Geography (1966); The North Atlantic Turbine (1967); Gunslinger, Part I (1968); Gunslinger, Part II (1969); 24 Love Songs (1969); Songs, Set Two: A Short Count (1970); The Cycle (1971); Gunslinger III (1972); Recollections of Gran Apacheria (1974); Collected Poems (1975); Slinger (1975); Hello, LaJolla (1978); Selected Poems (1978); Yellow Lola, Formerly Japanese Neon (1981).

  Criticism:

  Donald Allen, ed., Interviews (1980); George F. Butterick, Ed Dorn: A Checklist (1973); David Streeter, A Bibliography of Ed Dorn.

  ALAN DUGAN

  Poems (1961); Poems 2 (1963); Poems 3 (1967); Collected Poems (1969); Poems 4 (1974); Sequence (1976); New and Collected Poems: 1961–1983 (1983).

  ROBERT DUNCAN

  Heavenly City, Earthly City (1947); Poems 1948–1949 (1949); Medieval Scenes (1950); Song of the Borderguard (1952); Caesar’s Gate. (1955); Letters: Poems 1953–1956 (1958); Selected Poems 1941–1950 (1959); The Opening of the Field (1960); Roots and Branches (1964); Wine (1964); A Book of Remembrances (1966); Fragments of a Disordered Devotion (1966); Passages, 22–27 (1966); The Years as Catches, First Poems 1939–41 (1966); Bending the Bow (1968); The First Decade: Selected Poems, vol. 1 (1968); Derivations: Selected Poems, 1950–1956 (1968); Tribunals: Passages 31–55 (1970); Dante (1974); A Seventeenth-Century Suite (1974); The Venice Poem (1975); Ground Work: Before the War (1984); Only the Good Die Young (1985); Ground Work II: In the Dark (1987).