Collected poems Including late and uncollected work
Book - 2023
"In his centenary year, a collection of the Pulitzer Prize winner's poems celebrates the indispensable artistry of a writer who faced the history of his era with a 'clear-eyed mercy toward human weakness' (NYTBR) and 'absolute raw simplicity and directness' (Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate of England, 1984-1998). Anthony Hecht, whose output spanned eight volumes, beginning in 1954 with A Summoning of Stones, served as an infantryman in World War II and participated in the liberation of the death camps in Germany. His aesthetic--bound up with a need to see the best and worst of humankind with unsparing clarity--was shaped by the cadences of the King James Bible and great literature of the past. From the seven deadly s...ins to a Manhattan scene of Third Avenue in sunlight, or his poems of the many faces of Death ('Death the Oxford Don,' 'Death the Whore,' 'Death the Film Director'), Hecht's subject matter called him to a formal elegance inextricably woven with the dramatic force, thematic ambition, and powerful emotions in each poem. As the late J. D. McClatchy wrote, the rules of Anthony Hecht's art were 'moral principles meant finally to reveal the structure of human dilemmas and sympathies'"--
Saved in:
- Subjects
- Genres
- Poetry
- Published
-
New York :
Alfred A. Knopf
2023.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Edition
- First edition
- Item Description
- "This is a Borzoi book." -- title page verso.
- Physical Description
- xxiii, 611 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references.
- ISBN
- 9780593319192
9781524711931
- Introduction
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on the Text
- A Summoning of Stones
- Double Sonnet
- La Condition Botanique
- Fugue for One Voice
- Japan
- Le Masseur de Ma Soeur
- The Place of Pain in the Universe
- As Plato Said
- Discourse Concerning Temptation
- Samuel Sewall
- Drinking Song
- A Poem for Julia
- The Song of the Beasts
- Springtime
- Songs for the Air, or, Several Attitudes about Breathing
- Christmas Is Coming
- Katharsis
- Imitation
- The Gardens of the Villa d'Este
- Seascape with Figures
- A Deep Breath at Dawn
- Divination by a Cat
- A Roman Holiday
- Speech
- At the Frick
- A Valentine
- Alceste in the Wilderness
- Harangue
- Hallowe'en
- Spring for Thomas Hardy
- A Lesson from the Master
- The Hard Hours
- A Hill
- Third Avenue in Sunlight
- Tarantula, or, the Dance of Death
- The End of the Weekend
- Message from the City
- Jason
- Behold the Lilies of the Field
- Pig
- Ostia Antica
- The Dover Bitch
- To a Madonna (after Baudelaire)
- Clair de Lune
- Three Prompters from the Wings
- Lizards and Snakes
- Adam
- The Origin of Centaurs
- The Vow
- Heureux Qui, Comme Ulysse, a Fait un Beau Voyage (after du Bellay)
- Rites and Ceremonies
- A Letter
- The Seven Deadly Sins
- Upon the Death of George Santayana
- Birdwatchers of America
- The Song of the Flea
- The Man Who Married Magdalene (Variation on a Theme by Louis Simpson)
- Improvisations on Aesop
- The Thoughtful Roisterer Declines the Gambit (after Charles Vion de Dalibray)
- Giant Tortoise
- "More Light! More Light!"
- "And Can Ye Sing Baluloo When the Bairn Greets?"
- "It Out-Herods Herod. Pray You, Avoid It."
- Millions of Strange Shadows
- The Cost
- Black Boy in the Dark
- An Autumnal
- "Dichtung und Wahrheit"
- A Voice at a Seance
- Green: An Epistle
- Somebody's Life
- A Lot of Night Music
- A Birthday Poem
- Retreat
- Coming Home
- Praise for Kolonos (Sophocles)
- Sestina d'Inverno
- Rome
- Swan Dive
- "Auguries of Innocence"
- Peripeteia
- After the Rain
- Apples for Paul Suttman
- The Hunt
- Exile
- The Feast of Stephen
- The Odds
- Apprehensions
- The Ghost in the Martini
- Going the Rounds: A Sort of Love Poem
- Goliardic Song
- "Gladness of the Best"
- Poem upon the Lisbon Disaster (from Voltaire)
- Fifth Avenue Parade
- The Lull
- The Venetian Vespers
- I
- The Grapes
- The Deodand
- The Short End
- Invective Against Denise, a Witch
- Auspices
- Application for a Grant (freely from Horace)
- An Overview
- Still Life
- Persistences
- A Cast of Light
- House Sparrows
- An Old Malediction (freely from Horace)
- II
- The Venetian Vespers
- III
- Two poems by Joseph Brodsky, versions by Anthony Hecht Cape Cod Lullaby
- Lagoon
- The Transparent Man
- I
- Curriculum Vitae
- Riddles
- Chorus from Oedipus at Colonos (Sophocles)
- Terms
- Devotions of a Painter
- Destinations
- Eclogue of the Shepherd and the Townie
- Meditation
- II
- See Naples and Die
- III
- A Love for Four Voices
- IV
- Anthem
- Antapodosis
- Humoresque
- Naming the Animals
- Envoi
- A Bountiful Harvest
- V
- Crows in Winter
- In Memory of David Kalstone
- Poem Without Anybody
- To L. E. Sissman, 1928-1976
- The Transparent Man
- The Book of Yolek
- Murmur
- Flight Among the Tombs
- I The Presumptions of Death
- Death Sauntering About
- Death the Hypocrite
- Death Demure
- Peekaboo: Three Songs for the Nursery
- All Out
- Death Riding into Town
- Death the Inquisitor
- Death the Oxford Don
- Death as a Member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke
- Death the Knight
- Death the Archbishop
- Death the Society Lady
- Death the Poet
- Death the Painter
- Death the Judge
- Death the Mexican Revolutionary
- Death the Punchinello
- Death the Whore
- Death the Film Director
- Death the Copperplate Printer
- Death the Scholar
- Death the Carnival Barker
- II Proust on Skates
- The Whirligig of Time (Horace)
- A Ruminant
- Prospects
- For James Merrill: An Adieu
- Sisters
- The Message
- The Mysteries of Caesar
- To Fortuna Parvulorum
- A Pledge
- The Life of Crime
- Là-Bas: A Trance
- Matisse: Blue Interior with Two Girls-1947
- Proust on Skates
- A Death in Winter
- The Darkness and the Light
- Late Afternoon: The Onslaught of Love
- Circles
- Memory
- Mirror
- Samson
- An Orphic Calling
- Rara Avis in Terris
- A Fall
- Haman
- A Certain Slant
- A Brief Account of Our City
- Saul and David
- Despair
- The Hanging Gardens of Tyburn
- Judith
- Illumination
- Look Deep
- Nocturne: A Recurring Dream
- Lot's Wife
- Public Gardens
- Sacrifice
- The Witch of Endor
- Indolence
- The Ashen Light of Dawn (Baudelaire)
- The Plastic and the Poetic Form (Goethe)
- The Bequest (Vaillant)
- Once More, with Feeling (Charles d'Orléans)
- Le Jet d'Eau (Baudelaire)
- Taking Charge (Charles d'Orléans)
- A Symposium (Horace)
- A Special Occasion (Horace)
- A Prayer to Twin Divinities (Horace)
- Miriam
- Witness
- Lapidary Inscription with Explanatory Note
- Long-Distance Vision
- Secrets
- Poppy
- The Ceremony of Innocence
- The Road to Damascus
- Elders
- Sarabande on Attaining the Age of Seventy-Seven
- I.M.E.M.
- "The Darkness and the Light Are Both Alike to Thee"
- Interior Skies
- Late Poems from Liguria
- Four Triolets
- Motes
- Spring Break
- Visitations
- Menasseh ben Israel
- Aubade
- Declensions
- Uncollected Poems
- Mathematics Considered as a Vice
- There Is Ambition If Within the Heart
- An Offering for Patricia
- A Little Epithalamion for Margaret Wanning and Michael Sommer
- A Little Cemetery
- On Translation
- Now Nights Abridge Their Hours
- Horatian Virtue (freely from Horace)
- The Common Everlasting
- Cain the Inventor of Death
- Death the Patient
- Asclepius Formidabilis (Griefbane)
- Dilemma
- The Wise
- Instructions to a Painter for the Capitol Dome
- Chromatic Fantasy
- Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue
- Textual Notes
- Short Chronology
- Index of First Lines
- Index of Titles