The History of the Invitation: New and Selected Poems, 1963-2000

by Tony Towle

Poetry. The wit, power and elegance of Towle's poetry is brought together at last in one definitive volume. One of the clear, authentic voices of American poetry — Kenneth Koch. Meditative, erudite, stunning with ease and quirky sanity...a phenomenal measure of a poet's nearly four decades — Anne Waldman. Belongs in every library of poetry, possibly on its own shelf — Billy Collins.

Genres: Poetry

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tony Towle's work manages to be deadly-serious; earnest conversational writing that takes the listener into confidence and imparts, quietly, as well as fiercely funny, often at the author's own expense. The poetry is very much like listening to a very smart, yet very humble and self-aware friend speak with you; not at you, not wielding the formidable intelligence of the work like a club, but dedicated to sharing knowledge, experience.

He shows an acceptance of “bizarre” phenomena, an ability to let incidents take him where they will, and to drink it all in. This connects for the reader to his skill at drawing beauty from ugliness, while never succumbing to being a mere Pollyanna.

His poetry manages the task of spotting and honing in on small moments--crowds on a city beach, for instance--and connecting them to much bigger things. Tony can take the personal, and without over-glorifying the moment, transcend time and place. With the specificity of Tony's work, it's a real accomplishment, since his flights never take the reader away from the moment at hand, but take the long view of a changing world, while never losing sight of the now.

Tony's poetry has the uncanny ability to physicalize the abstract or that which occurs in the mind. It's a difficult trick; but in poems like “Swinburne: End of the Century,” where he writes

“It was deduced in my mind quite early
that I would be spending my time within its configurations
and neglect somewhat
the more exhaustive aggrandizements of the body,”

or in “Piece” where he writes
“open to great abstractions/which are not seen abstractly”

.. one can see the seed of this approach, and the challenge therein. But throughout Tony's work, he ably steps up to that test, and keeps the reader in the senses, close to the actions he describes.

When you consider the great span of Tony Towle's work, and the non-diminishment of his poetic powers, you are convinced, beyond the skill and beauty of his words, that he is, as he writes in “The New York Clouds,” “devoted to persistence/as I am.” It's rare to find a poet still working at the top of his game decade after decade, but Tony's work continues to grow and continues to impress and enlighten.

[Scott Brennan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent maybe six or seven hours over a couple of weeks reading the poems in Tony Towle's Selected. I didn't hit all of them (it is a longish collection spanning almost 40 years), but read enough to get a sense of what a "Towle poem" is like. In general, he writes a sort of anti-poem in that his work is not highly mannered or conventionally "poetic" in a Modernist sense. I would describe the poems as learned and chatty in a New York kind of way. The poems had a prose-like quality, and quite a few read like stream-of-consciousness journal entries. Most possessed an approachable, authentic, organic quality (probably indebted to Frank O'Hara, who is referred to from time to time). There is a good deal of dry, ironic humor and wit to be found here, a take away if you are reading Towle as a writer's writer, which he probably is. I liked "Moral Courage," "April 24," and "Commentary," but too few of the poems hit on all cylinders for me. The poems had for my taste very soft beginnings, so it was tough to get into them. There is a rambling looseness in Towle's work that is on one hand organic and appealing, but on the other hand errant and sloppy. No doubt this is a part of Towle's aesthetic, but I felt many (all?) the poems could have benefited from closer editing. Towle is a poet with a distinct voice, but without many distinctive poems. Still, he seems like a poet a lover of poetry might appreciate reading.