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Selected Poems by Richard Hugo
The result easily demonstrated, then as now, the massive achievement of the writer whom Carolyn Kizer called "one of the most passionate, energetic, and honest poets living."
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Richard Hugo
48 books67 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Richard Hugo (December 21, 1923 - October 22, 1982), born Richard Hogan, was an American poet. Primarily a regionalist, Hugo's work reflects the economic depression of the Northwest, particularly Montana. Born in White Center, Washington, he was raised by his mother's parents after his father left the family. In 1942 he legally changed his name to Richard Hugo, taking his stepfather's surname. He served in World War II as a bombardier in the Mediterranean. He left the service in 1945 after flying 35 combat missions and reaching the rank of first lieutenant.
Hugo received his B.A. in 1948 and his M.A. in 1952 in Creative Writing from the University of Washington where he studied under Theodore Roethke.[1] He married Barbara Williams in 1952, the same year he started working as a technical writer for Boeing.
In 1961 his first book of poems, A Run of Jacks, was published. Soon after he took a creative writing teaching job at the University of Montana. He later became the head of the creative writing program there.[2] His wife returned to Seattle in 1964, and they divorced soon after. He published five more books of poetry, a memoir, a highly respected book on writing, and also a mystery novel. His posthumous book of collected poetry, Making Certain It Goes On, evinces that his poems are marked by crisp, gorgeous images of nature that often stand in contrast to his own depression, loneliness, and alcoholism. Although almost always written in free verse, his poems have a strong sense of rhythm that often echoes iambic meters. He also wrote of large number of informal epistolary poems at a time when that form was unfashionable.
Hugo was a friend of poet James Wright.
Hugo’s The Real West Marginal Way is a collection of essays, generally autobiographical in nature, that detail his childhood, his military service, his poetics, and his teaching.
Hugo remarried in 1974 to Ripley Schemm Hansen. In 1977 he was named the editor of the Yale Younger Poets Series.
Hugo died of leukemia on October 22, 1982.
Richard Hugo (December 21, 1923 - October 22, 1982), born Richard Hogan, was an American poet. Primarily a regionalist, Hugo's work reflects the economic depression of the Northwest, particularly Montana. Born in White Center, Washington, he was raised by his mother's parents after his father left the family. In 1942 he legally changed his name to Richard Hugo, taking his stepfather's surname. He served in World War II as a bombardier in the Mediterranean. He left the service in 1945 after flying 35 combat missions and reaching the rank of first lieutenant.
Hugo received his B.A. in 1948 and his M.A. in 1952 in Creative Writing from the University of Washington where he studied under Theodore Roethke.[1] He married Barbara Williams in 1952, the same year he started working as a technical writer for Boeing.
In 1961 his first book of poems, A Run of Jacks, was published. Soon after he took a creative writing teaching job at the University of Montana. He later became the head of the creative writing program there.[2] His wife returned to Seattle in 1964, and they divorced soon after. He published five more books of poetry, a memoir, a highly respected book on writing, and also a mystery novel. His posthumous book of collected poetry, Making Certain It Goes On, evinces that his poems are marked by crisp, gorgeous images of nature that often stand in contrast to his own depression, loneliness, and alcoholism. Although almost always written in free verse, his poems have a strong sense of rhythm that often echoes iambic meters. He also wrote of large number of informal epistolary poems at a time when that form was unfashionable.
Hugo was a friend of poet James Wright.
Hugo’s The Real West Marginal Way is a collection of essays, generally autobiographical in nature, that detail his childhood, his military service, his poetics, and his teaching.
Hugo remarried in 1974 to Ripley Schemm Hansen. In 1977 he was named the editor of the Yale Younger Poets Series.
Hugo died of leukemia on October 22, 1982.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 3, 2016
This was the first book of Richard Hugo's I ever read, and I fell in love with his poetry. He has a way of writing about a place that makes it universal, that finds the symbols and themes in the ordinary that we can all connect with and relate to. His language is very concrete and succint; this is not a flowery poet. And yet the direct language has a music all its own. Themes are subtley presented, yet clear.
My favorite poems include: "Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg" (an oft quoted poem that includes the line "...The last good kiss / you had was years ago", which was the basis for the title of "The Last Good Kiss" by James Crumley, another late Montana author), "The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field" (a modern loose vilanelle), and "West Marginal Way".
Richard Hugo also wrote a book called "The Triggering Town", in which he talked about how places played an important role in his poetry. I recommend that anyone who reads and enjoys this book of collected poem should also check out "The Triggering Town".
My favorite poems include: "Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg" (an oft quoted poem that includes the line "...The last good kiss / you had was years ago", which was the basis for the title of "The Last Good Kiss" by James Crumley, another late Montana author), "The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field" (a modern loose vilanelle), and "West Marginal Way".
Richard Hugo also wrote a book called "The Triggering Town", in which he talked about how places played an important role in his poetry. I recommend that anyone who reads and enjoys this book of collected poem should also check out "The Triggering Town".
August 23, 2007
A good selection of the poet laureate of the abandoned buildings, alcoholic failures and dying towns of the Pacific Northwest. Good stuff.
September 23, 2016
I appreciate Hugo's descriptions of small towns in the Northwest, Montana, etc. He focuses a lot on the natural world, fishing, industrialization and economic depression, really pulling out the particular lexicon of particular places and activities. But it's really hard to pay attention to any of that because of the mountain of shit eclipsing his poems.
What is really off-putting about Hugo's voice is his increasingly intense misogyny, leaking out here and there to the point where it's almost impossible to see anything else. It starts out small. Women are mentioned usually as an amorphous mass "the women", often in the guise of "whores" (so many poems mention 'the whores'). Women are frequently described as attractive (the most important trait in a lady, clearly) or cruel (but often both). He writes in one poem that "demons, always deposited cruel/in the prettiest unmarried girl,". Several times he says something to the effect of "Girls don't like me", or "All girl should be nicer" (The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir), the flip side being a poem called "In Your Good Dream", in which "Girls won't make fun of you here". It only gets worse as the collection moves forward in time. In a bizarre (and really transparent) dream poem, he catches a giant fish that "wants to kill you", which he is then told is a "'Girl fish'". And it just keeps getting more terrible.
There's creepy fixation on girl's bodies:
Describing an old Valentine picture: "a plump girl in a swing/who never could grow body hair or old/in all that lace"
In a poem-letter to a friend, asking her to go to a dance with him, he describes the "Girls in mini minis, tighter than skin/ over their behinds". (He then goes on to pressure her to say yes, saying "Think about it. Say yes. Be nice.")
There's the obligatory casual rape mention:
In a list of "heroes of time", he includes Genghis Khan, saying: "We've conquered your land. Now we want women./Bring them today at high noon to the square. After we've had them, we'll get out of here." (this list includes Odysseus, Joseph, Michelangelo, and the poet himself!).
And super unsettling casualness when describing violence against women:
"I'm laughing at a neighbor girl beaten to scream/by a savage father and I'm ashamed to look." (What?!)
One poem returns to a refrain to the effect of: "that girl upstream was diced by scaling knives"
If Hugo's vision is to be believed, women's only value is their ogle-able exteriors, which unfortunately hide queen-bitch hearts. The prettier the girl, the more cruel. It's as though they exist only to trap men and therefore violence against women is justified or meaningless because they're basically cardboard contraptions of temptation and punishment.
Hugo has two tiny moments of being even slightly self aware of his hatred of women. One is a poem in which a waitress mocks the narrator (Hugo, presumably), to which he "tried to tell her how many lovers [he'd] had.". He then drives for miles hating her, then "remembered what/ the doctor said: really a hatred of self." The second time is in a letter-poem, discussing poverty and how it damages people. He says: "finally,/ hate takes over, hippie, n-word, Indian, anyone you can lump/ like garbage in a pit, including women." At least there's a small kernel of self-knowledge there (and a whole lot of racist baggage to unpack, with that misogyny).
What is really off-putting about Hugo's voice is his increasingly intense misogyny, leaking out here and there to the point where it's almost impossible to see anything else. It starts out small. Women are mentioned usually as an amorphous mass "the women", often in the guise of "whores" (so many poems mention 'the whores'). Women are frequently described as attractive (the most important trait in a lady, clearly) or cruel (but often both). He writes in one poem that "demons, always deposited cruel/in the prettiest unmarried girl,". Several times he says something to the effect of "Girls don't like me", or "All girl should be nicer" (The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir), the flip side being a poem called "In Your Good Dream", in which "Girls won't make fun of you here". It only gets worse as the collection moves forward in time. In a bizarre (and really transparent) dream poem, he catches a giant fish that "wants to kill you", which he is then told is a "'Girl fish'". And it just keeps getting more terrible.
There's creepy fixation on girl's bodies:
Describing an old Valentine picture: "a plump girl in a swing/who never could grow body hair or old/in all that lace"
In a poem-letter to a friend, asking her to go to a dance with him, he describes the "Girls in mini minis, tighter than skin/ over their behinds". (He then goes on to pressure her to say yes, saying "Think about it. Say yes. Be nice.")
There's the obligatory casual rape mention:
In a list of "heroes of time", he includes Genghis Khan, saying: "We've conquered your land. Now we want women./Bring them today at high noon to the square. After we've had them, we'll get out of here." (this list includes Odysseus, Joseph, Michelangelo, and the poet himself!).
And super unsettling casualness when describing violence against women:
"I'm laughing at a neighbor girl beaten to scream/by a savage father and I'm ashamed to look." (What?!)
One poem returns to a refrain to the effect of: "that girl upstream was diced by scaling knives"
If Hugo's vision is to be believed, women's only value is their ogle-able exteriors, which unfortunately hide queen-bitch hearts. The prettier the girl, the more cruel. It's as though they exist only to trap men and therefore violence against women is justified or meaningless because they're basically cardboard contraptions of temptation and punishment.
Hugo has two tiny moments of being even slightly self aware of his hatred of women. One is a poem in which a waitress mocks the narrator (Hugo, presumably), to which he "tried to tell her how many lovers [he'd] had.". He then drives for miles hating her, then "remembered what/ the doctor said: really a hatred of self." The second time is in a letter-poem, discussing poverty and how it damages people. He says: "finally,/ hate takes over, hippie, n-word, Indian, anyone you can lump/ like garbage in a pit, including women." At least there's a small kernel of self-knowledge there (and a whole lot of racist baggage to unpack, with that misogyny).
February 1, 2022
Four and a half stars
Hugo is a master of rhythm. He has a unique voice which is public and private in equal measure. He is particularly excellent in his descriptions of place, landscape and weather.
Hugo is a master of rhythm. He has a unique voice which is public and private in equal measure. He is particularly excellent in his descriptions of place, landscape and weather.
April 6, 2022
Beautiful, explores the expanse of Hugo’s work from the NW to Montana.
“Some places are forever afternoon.
Across the road and a short field
There is the river, split and yellow
And this far down affected by the tide.”
“Some places are forever afternoon.
Across the road and a short field
There is the river, split and yellow
And this far down affected by the tide.”
December 28, 2021
“If I painted, I’d paint landscapes.” —Richard Hugo, “Landscapes”
Hugo is a masterful observer of the particular, and his poems are almost photographic in their descriptive power, his voice somewhat journalistic in its matter-of-factness, as if the poet were intent on chronicling life’s most vivid moments before they float away, like trout, on the currents of time.
Favorite Poems:
“Galileo’s Chair”
“Kennedy Ucciso”
“Spinazzola: Quella Cantina La”
“Galleria Umberto I”
“Remote Farm on the Dubrovnik-Sarajevo Run”
“A Map of Montana in Italy”
“Silver Star”
“Montana Ranch Abandoned”
“Hot Springs”
“Bear Paw”
“A Snapshot of the Auxiliary”
“Flying, Reflying, Farming”
“Last Day There”
“Landscapes”
“The Art of Poetry”
Hugo is a masterful observer of the particular, and his poems are almost photographic in their descriptive power, his voice somewhat journalistic in its matter-of-factness, as if the poet were intent on chronicling life’s most vivid moments before they float away, like trout, on the currents of time.
Favorite Poems:
“Galileo’s Chair”
“Kennedy Ucciso”
“Spinazzola: Quella Cantina La”
“Galleria Umberto I”
“Remote Farm on the Dubrovnik-Sarajevo Run”
“A Map of Montana in Italy”
“Silver Star”
“Montana Ranch Abandoned”
“Hot Springs”
“Bear Paw”
“A Snapshot of the Auxiliary”
“Flying, Reflying, Farming”
“Last Day There”
“Landscapes”
“The Art of Poetry”
March 4, 2021
While some aspects of Richard Hugo's poetry can seem a bit dated (such as his rather traditional attitude towards women), his verse still speaks with a clear, unvarnished voice that perfectly fits his subjects, most of which concern working-class life in Montana and the Pacific Northwest.
But Hugo was also a veteran of the Second World War, and some of the best poems in this volume are drawn from his 1969 collection Good Luck in Cracked Italian. Those poems were inspired by the author's visit to Italy some twenty years after he served there as an Army Air Corps bombardier, and works such as "Galleria Umberto I" and "Maratea Porto: The Dear Postmistress There" are standouts from this excellent selection of his poetry.
But Hugo was also a veteran of the Second World War, and some of the best poems in this volume are drawn from his 1969 collection Good Luck in Cracked Italian. Those poems were inspired by the author's visit to Italy some twenty years after he served there as an Army Air Corps bombardier, and works such as "Galleria Umberto I" and "Maratea Porto: The Dear Postmistress There" are standouts from this excellent selection of his poetry.
June 7, 2017
Favorite poems were "Trout", "Near Kalalock", "Landscapes", "Introduction to the Hoh", and "Letter to Matthews from Barton Street Flats".
July 8, 2007
"The last good kiss / you had was years ago."
July 30, 2007
It's not complete, and it messes up 13 Letters and 13 Dreams, but it's a good overview of a poet who is not talked about as much as he should be.
November 24, 2010
I return to Hugo's poems over and over again.
September 18, 2011
Depressing poetry
December 31, 2013
I've actually read this, but I am looking at his letter poems again.
October 22, 2012
Check out my review at danielshankcruz.com
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April 1, 2013811.54 H895s 1979
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews