Morning Poems - by Robert Bly (Paperback)

About the Book

Often personal and autobiographical, the poems in this collection include meditations on the art of poetry, on Robert Bly's boyhood on a Minnesota farm and on the myths and stories that shape our mutual world. It also includes a sequence of poems on Wallace Stevens and meditations on aging and facing death. Written with the discipline of a poem each day, the collection cements Bly's stature as an important modern poet.

Book Synopsis

"Morning Poems is a sensational collection -- Robert Bly's best in many years. Inspired by the example of William Stafford, Bly decided to embark on the project of writing a daily poem: Every morning he would stay in bed until he had completed the day's work. These 'little adventures/In Morning longing, ' as he calls them, address classic poetic subjects (childhood, the seasons, death and heaven) in a way that capitalizes fully on the pun in the book's title. These are morning poems, full of the delight and mystery of waking in a new day, and they also do their share of mourning, elegizing the deceases and capturing the 'moment of sorror before creation.' Some of the poems are dialogues where unconventional speakers include mice, maple trees, bundles of grain, the body, the 'oldest mind' and the soul. A particularly moving sequence involves Bly's imaginative transactions with a great and unlikely precursor, Wallace Stevens. The whole is a fascinating and original book from one of our most fascinating authors."

-- David Lehman

From the Back Cover

"Morning Poems is a sensational collection -- Robert Bly's best in many years. Inspired by the example of William Stafford, Bly decided to embark on the project of writing a daily poem: Every morning he would stay in bed until he had completed the day's work. These 'little adventures/In Morning longing, ' as he calls them, address classic poetic subjects (childhood, the seasons, death and heaven) in a way that capitalizes fully on the pun in the book's title. These are morning poems, full of the delight and mystery of waking in a new day, and they also do their share of mourning, elegizing the deceases and capturing the 'moment of sorror before creation.' Some of the poems are dialogues where unconventional speakers include mice, maple trees, bundles of grain, the body, the 'oldest mind' and the soul. A particularly moving sequence involves Bly's imaginative transactions with a great and unlikely precursor, Wallace Stevens. The whole is a fascinating and original book from one of our most fascinating authors."
-- David Lehman

Review Quotes

"Bly is today one of the leaders of a poetic revival which has returned American literature to the world community." -- Kenneth Rexroth

"A sensational collection....A fascinating and original book from one of our most fascinating and original authors." -- David Lehman

"There is a lot of human knowledge in this book, and at the same time it has the vigor of youth. How can that be?" -- Galway Kinnell