Human Nature: Poems

by Toby Olson

Olson's first book of new poetry in sixteen years. Human Nature is the poet and novelist Toby Olson's first book of new poetry since We Are the Fire (New Directions, 1984). The intervening years saw five of his novels published to strong critical acclaim. "But," says Olson, "one day I woke from fiction to discover I'd not written a poem in close to ten years. How to return to poetry after being away from it so long?" Certainly not in repetition of things done before. In Human Nature , Olson joins the novelist's art to the poet's reflections of friends and events and times gone by. When memory fades, replaced by story, the reader of these remarkable narrative meditations begins to realize the ways in which poetry might disclose different truths, born of the reinvention of experience. "In Human Nature ," says Olson, "even the most autobiographical poems let fiction in."

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2000

About the author

Toby Olson (born 1937 Chicago) is an American novelist.
Through high school and his four years in the Navy as a surgical technician, he lived in California, Arizona, and Texas.
He graduated from Occidental College and Long Island University.
Toby Olson has published eight novels, the most recent of which – The Blond Box – appeared from Fiction Collective-2 in 2003; and numerous books of poetry, including Human Nature (New Directions). A new novel, The Bitter Half, is forthcoming. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts, Olson’s novel Seaview received the PEN/Faulkner award for The Most Distinguished Work of American Fiction in 1983. Toby Olson lives in Philadelphia and in North Truro, on Cape Cod.