Review by Booklist Review
Despite clinical depression and severe agoraphobia, Carruth (1921-2008) lived not just through but in colloquy with his times. Emerging glad to be alive from an attempted-suicide-induced coma, he made his last two decades almost as productive as the three that preceded them. Still, between Toward the Distant Islands (2006) and his passing, he didn't write enough poems to fill this big a book. Besides eulogistic essays by the poets Brooks Haxton and Stephen Dobyns, who knew him personally, the final poems from each of 26 previous books fill out the volume. The older poems, most not among those Sam Hamill selected to expand Toward the Distant Islands into a fine introduction to Carruth at his best, attest his thematic consistency as well as his range of styles and voices. The 34 pages of the literally last poems continue the gusto and the love, the anger and the philosophical acceptance, of his entire poetic corpus as they engage environmental crisis, idealistic delusion, appetitive delights, the miracle of friendship, and the hazards of age indispensably, as ever.--Olson, Ray Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Carruth (1921-2008) was, by the time of his death, regarded as a major figure in American poetry, having written for decades poems that are morally astute, in deep sympathy with nature and yet not estranged from humanity's will to destroy it. This unusual book combines his last 40 pages of unpublished poetry with the final poem from each of his previous books, making for a powerful monument to this poet's career. The new poems are, unsurprisingly, elegiac, full of conversational good-byes and regrets buoyed by a dash of kind humor: "The next time you see a line/ Of geezers shuffling toward the checkout/ Remember they are entering the arcade of/ Death," he writes in "See You Tomorrow." Elsewhere, he thanks the long-dead poet James Wright "for that/ astonishing blurb you wrote for my book/ years ago." Thinking back on a vacation spot he'll never revisit, Carruth asks, "Can you imagine how much I wish I were/ there? No, you cannot, my dears. Especially not/ In the little time we have left to us." The last poems from Carruth's previous books are also hauntingly final. Lines Carruth wrote decades ago to his daughter now, taken differently, stand as truthful parting words to his readers: "I can address you only in my mind,/ Or, what's the same, in this untouching poem." (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
The title of this posthumously released collection bears a double meaning, referring not only to 28 pieces written just before Carruth's death in 2008 at age 87, but also to 27 poems that concluded volumes published over six decades. Prefaced by appreciative essays from poets Brooks Haxton and Stephen Dobyns, this collection serves as a memorial to a versatile if sometimes reclusive poet whose vital and distinctively American voice articulated the necessity of conscience in the face of indifference and human suffering. A Carruth poem could be classically formal or experimental, political or personal, elegant or colloquial, and all modes are represented here, even in the lyrics and fragments most recently written, from the Yeatsian, apocalyptical prophecy of "A Vision of Now" ("For we are/ The new refugees, going nowhere."), to the open-hearted candor of "Valentine" ("I was old when I was born,/ And I've been tired all my life."). VERDICT Though Toward the Distant Islands (2006) remains the essential introduction to Carruth's work, this volume offers an equally wide overview and will be welcomed by longtime fans as well as those wishing to deepen their acquaintance with this important 20th-century poet.-Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, NY (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
