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Higher
The poems in HIGHER are at once direct and resonant, celebratory of the natural world and of spiritual aspirations. Rising from a working-class, blue-collar sensibility, these pieces range from a short work about using a sledge hammer on a street crew to a multi-part longer work about animals in changing nature. These lyric poems include subtle metrics and enough narrative to drive events, often with elegiac references to a military vet friend, a brother, a Sicilian grandmother, and literary heroes. Their focus ultimately returns to hope and care for children, often with no small amount of humor. This collection – from the winner of a National Magazine Award and Prize Americana – attests to our ability to pay attention, to detail what we see and what we hear, and, as such, aspire to joy.
105 pages, Paperback
Published April 26, 2023
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About the author
Robert Stewart
235 books5 followersLibrarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 4, 2023
Robert Stewart won a National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the magazine industry’s highest honor, for his 18 years of editing New Letters Magazine. In other words, you can count on a book he writes to be good. I’ve already given him five stars each for two other poetry collections: Working Class and Chickenhood.
Stewart’s life has been a mix of blue collar and literati: something for everyone. Single-note poetry books can often be boring, but Stewart knows to mix things up, from highbrow to sweet and charming to getting chuckles, as my favorite poem of the book does. Here’s an excerpt from “We Have Our Coats On.”
“We have our coats on.
Don’t the women see us?
The performance has ended.
Our coats are on.
Lobby lights have dimmed,
proscuitto rolls sealed in tubs….
Don’t they see us,
sitting on the stairs
across from the door
with our coats on?”
Yes, we see you, Robert. And self-deprecating humor is hilarious. With each repetition, each indignant disbelief, it gets funnier.
The poem that moved me most was “The Day Marian Anderson Sings ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” I wasn’t around in 1939 (neither were the Stewarts), but I’ve seen Marian Anderson’s performance at the Lincoln Memorial on documentaries many times. Stewart and his wife were channel surfing and landed on it. It ends
“…my wife turns to me, so I see
in her eyes why she–I mean everyone–
and I stop breathing.”
Stewart’s life has been a mix of blue collar and literati: something for everyone. Single-note poetry books can often be boring, but Stewart knows to mix things up, from highbrow to sweet and charming to getting chuckles, as my favorite poem of the book does. Here’s an excerpt from “We Have Our Coats On.”
“We have our coats on.
Don’t the women see us?
The performance has ended.
Our coats are on.
Lobby lights have dimmed,
proscuitto rolls sealed in tubs….
Don’t they see us,
sitting on the stairs
across from the door
with our coats on?”
Yes, we see you, Robert. And self-deprecating humor is hilarious. With each repetition, each indignant disbelief, it gets funnier.
The poem that moved me most was “The Day Marian Anderson Sings ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” I wasn’t around in 1939 (neither were the Stewarts), but I’ve seen Marian Anderson’s performance at the Lincoln Memorial on documentaries many times. Stewart and his wife were channel surfing and landed on it. It ends
“…my wife turns to me, so I see
in her eyes why she–I mean everyone–
and I stop breathing.”
Displaying 1 of 1 review