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Morning Poems: A Sensational Daily Poetry Collection on Waking, Mourning, and the Mystery of Creation
"Morning Poems is a sensational collection — Robert Bly's best in many years . Inspired by the example of William Stafford, Bly decided to embark on the project of writing a daily Every morning he would stay in bed until he had completed the day's work. These 'little adventures/In Morning longing,' as he calls them, address classic poetic subjects (childhood, the seasons, death and heaven) in a way that capitalizes fully on the pun in the book's title. These are morning poems, full of the delight and mystery of waking in a new day, and they also do their share of mourning, elegizing the deceases and capturing the 'moment of sorror before creation.' Some of the poems are dialogues where unconventional speakers include mice, maple trees, bundles of grain, the body, the 'oldest mind' and the soul. A particularly moving sequence involves Bly's imaginative transactions with a great and unlikely precursor, Wallace Stevens. The whole is a fascinating and original book from one of our most fascinating authors." — David Lehman
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
26 people are currently reading
344 people want to read
About the author
Robert Bly
187 books415 followersRobert Bly was an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.
Robert Bly was born in western Minnesota in 1926 to parents of Norwegian stock. He enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and spent two years there. After one year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, he transferred to Harvard and thereby joined the famous group of writers who were undergraduates at that time, which included Donald Hall, Adrienne Rich, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, Harold Brodky, George Plimpton, and John Hawkes. He graduated in 1950 and spent the next few years in New York living, as they say, hand to mouth.
Beginning in 1954, he took two years at the University of Iowa at the Writers Workshop along with W. D. Snodgrass, Donald Justice, and others. In 1956 he received a Fulbright grant to travel to Norway and translate Norwegian poetry into English. While there he found not only his relatives but the work of a number of major poets whose force was not present in the United States, among them Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Gunnar Ekelof, Georg Trakl and Harry Martinson. He determined then to start a literary magazine for poetry translation in the United States and so begin The Fifties and The Sixties and The Seventies, which introduced many of these poets to the writers of his generation, and published as well essays on American poets and insults to those deserving. During this time he lived on a farm in Minnesota with his wife and children.
In 1966 he co-founded American Writers Against the Vietnam War and led much of the opposition among writers to that war. When he won the National Book Award for The Light Around the Body, he contributed the prize money to the Resistance. During the 70s he published eleven books of poetry, essays, and translations, celebrating the power of myth, Indian ecstatic poetry, meditation, and storytelling. During the 80s he published Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, The Wingéd Life: Selected Poems and Prose of Thoreau,The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and A Little Book on the Human Shadow.
His work Iron John: A Book About Men is an international bestseller which has been translated into many languages. He frequently does workshops for men with James Hillman and others, and workshops for men and women with Marion Woodman. He and his wife Ruth, along with the storyteller Gioia Timpanelli, frequently conduct seminars on European fairy tales. In the early 90s, with James Hillman and Michael Meade, he edited The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, an anthology of poems from the men's work. Since then he has edited The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford, and The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy, a collection of sacred poetry from many cultures.
Robert Bly was born in western Minnesota in 1926 to parents of Norwegian stock. He enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and spent two years there. After one year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, he transferred to Harvard and thereby joined the famous group of writers who were undergraduates at that time, which included Donald Hall, Adrienne Rich, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, Harold Brodky, George Plimpton, and John Hawkes. He graduated in 1950 and spent the next few years in New York living, as they say, hand to mouth.
Beginning in 1954, he took two years at the University of Iowa at the Writers Workshop along with W. D. Snodgrass, Donald Justice, and others. In 1956 he received a Fulbright grant to travel to Norway and translate Norwegian poetry into English. While there he found not only his relatives but the work of a number of major poets whose force was not present in the United States, among them Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Gunnar Ekelof, Georg Trakl and Harry Martinson. He determined then to start a literary magazine for poetry translation in the United States and so begin The Fifties and The Sixties and The Seventies, which introduced many of these poets to the writers of his generation, and published as well essays on American poets and insults to those deserving. During this time he lived on a farm in Minnesota with his wife and children.
In 1966 he co-founded American Writers Against the Vietnam War and led much of the opposition among writers to that war. When he won the National Book Award for The Light Around the Body, he contributed the prize money to the Resistance. During the 70s he published eleven books of poetry, essays, and translations, celebrating the power of myth, Indian ecstatic poetry, meditation, and storytelling. During the 80s he published Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, The Wingéd Life: Selected Poems and Prose of Thoreau,The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and A Little Book on the Human Shadow.
His work Iron John: A Book About Men is an international bestseller which has been translated into many languages. He frequently does workshops for men with James Hillman and others, and workshops for men and women with Marion Woodman. He and his wife Ruth, along with the storyteller Gioia Timpanelli, frequently conduct seminars on European fairy tales. In the early 90s, with James Hillman and Michael Meade, he edited The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, an anthology of poems from the men's work. Since then he has edited The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford, and The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy, a collection of sacred poetry from many cultures.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
July 25, 2021
Very comforting to see Bly writing the same poem over and over again. It's something I can't stop doing, so at least I'm not alone.
June 21, 2010
A new collection by Bly in which he devised a project of writing a poem every morning before rising. Few people could do this successfully but Bly’s command of simple language that illuminates large truths makes this book a winner. Many of the poems deal in context with farm life—Bly was raised on a Minnesota farm. My favorites of these: The Shocks We Put Our Pitchforks Into and Western Minnesota.
July 10, 2023
Things to think, Bly style.
Favorites include “Bad People,” “Things to Think,” “Two Ways to Write Poems,” “The Face in the Toyota,” “Looking at Aging Faces.”
“Each face had a long time in the womb to decide
How much it would let worldly things affect it,
How often it would turn toward the wall or the woods,
So it didn’t have to be seen, how much
It would give in, how stubbornly it would
Hold its own.”
—“Looking at Aging Faces”
Favorites include “Bad People,” “Things to Think,” “Two Ways to Write Poems,” “The Face in the Toyota,” “Looking at Aging Faces.”
“Each face had a long time in the womb to decide
How much it would let worldly things affect it,
How often it would turn toward the wall or the woods,
So it didn’t have to be seen, how much
It would give in, how stubbornly it would
Hold its own.”
—“Looking at Aging Faces”
May 14, 2017
In the old days, poetry was often hard to decipher if you were unversed in ancient literature—Milton, Spencer, Blake, and Coleridge are all dense with allusion. But this allusive nature, while making the poems harder to "get" on a cursory reading, also meant that with some effort the poems could be interpreted, and that the reader could in fact understand what the author was trying to say.
These days, the increasingly ragtag herd calling themselves "poets" has abandoned rooted literature in favor of their own strange brew. Either they allude to ideas, people, and events that are meaningful only to them and possibly a close circle of friends, or they try to invent new allusions, to cobble together a fresh canon of literary inspiration from which to draw their content.
This is the approach of Robert Bly, at least in his collection Morning Poems. He says things like this: "Perhaps vowels were all created / In a moment of sorrow before creation— / A grief they've not been able to sing in this life." I guess if you're in a certain frame of mind that might sound vaguely poetic, but what the hell does it mean?
Apart from being all form and no content, lines like these are a penny per pound in college writing groups and community poetry circles all over the United States—I know, because I've heard them read aloud, and even written a few myself. It's self-conscious poeticizing at its very worst and most insidious, and I'm not going to say it's fresh or novel or interesting because it's not. It's a colossal pain in my side that can only be salved with real poetry. Time to read some Merwin or Donne.
P.S. Supposedly Bly wrote these poems at the rate of one a day, finishing them before he got out of bed. I propose that sleeping later and putting on his trousers before trying to pen great lines would have served him, and his reading public, much better.
These days, the increasingly ragtag herd calling themselves "poets" has abandoned rooted literature in favor of their own strange brew. Either they allude to ideas, people, and events that are meaningful only to them and possibly a close circle of friends, or they try to invent new allusions, to cobble together a fresh canon of literary inspiration from which to draw their content.
This is the approach of Robert Bly, at least in his collection Morning Poems. He says things like this: "Perhaps vowels were all created / In a moment of sorrow before creation— / A grief they've not been able to sing in this life." I guess if you're in a certain frame of mind that might sound vaguely poetic, but what the hell does it mean?
Apart from being all form and no content, lines like these are a penny per pound in college writing groups and community poetry circles all over the United States—I know, because I've heard them read aloud, and even written a few myself. It's self-conscious poeticizing at its very worst and most insidious, and I'm not going to say it's fresh or novel or interesting because it's not. It's a colossal pain in my side that can only be salved with real poetry. Time to read some Merwin or Donne.
P.S. Supposedly Bly wrote these poems at the rate of one a day, finishing them before he got out of bed. I propose that sleeping later and putting on his trousers before trying to pen great lines would have served him, and his reading public, much better.
December 9, 2023
Read in one sitting on this Saturday AM, but just didn’t do it too much for me. Good bits and pieces but nothing revolutionary. 2 stars may be too harsh but 3 feels to high
POTB: BAD PEOPLE
A man told me once that all the bad people Were needed. Maybe not all, but your fingernails You need; they are really claws, and we know Claws. The sharks- -what about them?
They make other fish swim faster. The hard-faced
men
In black coats who chase you for hours In dreams--that's the only way to get you To the shore. Sometimes those hard women Who abandon you get you to say, "You." A lazy part of us is like a tumbleweed.
It doesn't move on its own. Sometimes it takes A lot of Depression to get tumbleweeds moving.
Then they blow across three or four States.
This man told me that things work together.
Bad handwriting sometimes leads to new ideas;
And a careless god- who refuses to let people
Eat from the Tree of Knowledge can lead To books, and eventually to us. We write Poems with lies in them, but they help a little.
POTB: BAD PEOPLE
A man told me once that all the bad people Were needed. Maybe not all, but your fingernails You need; they are really claws, and we know Claws. The sharks- -what about them?
They make other fish swim faster. The hard-faced
men
In black coats who chase you for hours In dreams--that's the only way to get you To the shore. Sometimes those hard women Who abandon you get you to say, "You." A lazy part of us is like a tumbleweed.
It doesn't move on its own. Sometimes it takes A lot of Depression to get tumbleweeds moving.
Then they blow across three or four States.
This man told me that things work together.
Bad handwriting sometimes leads to new ideas;
And a careless god- who refuses to let people
Eat from the Tree of Knowledge can lead To books, and eventually to us. We write Poems with lies in them, but they help a little.
April 30, 2024
There were a few poems that I really loved, and will stick with me! Overall, I’d say it was an average read for me.
April 12, 2021
Witty as usual , absolutely topmost
December 4, 2011
I enjoyed this collection of poems, published in 1997, far more than I did Bly's 1967 National Book Award winner, The Light Around the Body. Then again, I am older now and have, myself, lost interest in the world's politics and endless drama. There is nothing political about Morning Poems, a collection of retrospective and introspective pieces written by an aging man and poet coming to terms with his past and facing death.
The collection was a bit hard to get into, but I encourage the reader to stick with it. The imagery and themes are subtle but powerful. The voice - the poems - grow on you. Morning Poems is organized into six sections, and I especially enjoyed Section IV, which explored the art of being a poet and then, in "A Week of Poems at Bennington," proceeded to slam poet Wallace Stevens. (Perhaps slam is not the right word ... debate? counter? artfully disagree? Stevens described the notion of God as "Supreme Fiction" - small comfort to one facing old age and death.) Here is one of these Bennington poems:
THE WALTZ
One man I know keeps saying that we don't need
Heaven. He thinks embroidered Russian
Wedding blouses will take the place of angels;
And windy nights when the crows fly up in front
Of your car will replace all the Psalmists.
He wants us to dance high-hearted, like the bacchae,
Even if it's a waltz. It's a little awkward;
But if you practice, he says, you can do it.
The hard thing is to try to figure out how
To say good-bye--even just going to the grocery.
Another great poem in Section I:
WHY WE DON'T DIE
In late September many voices
Tell you you will die.
That leaf say it. That coolness.
All of them are right.
Our many souls -- what
Can they do about it?
Nothing. They're already
Part of the invisible.
Our souls have been
Longing to go home
Anyway. "It's late," they say.
"Lock the door. Let's go."
The body doesn't agree. It says,
"We buried a little iron
Ball under that tree.
Let's go get it."
I'll be revising this book often.
The collection was a bit hard to get into, but I encourage the reader to stick with it. The imagery and themes are subtle but powerful. The voice - the poems - grow on you. Morning Poems is organized into six sections, and I especially enjoyed Section IV, which explored the art of being a poet and then, in "A Week of Poems at Bennington," proceeded to slam poet Wallace Stevens. (Perhaps slam is not the right word ... debate? counter? artfully disagree? Stevens described the notion of God as "Supreme Fiction" - small comfort to one facing old age and death.) Here is one of these Bennington poems:
THE WALTZ
One man I know keeps saying that we don't need
Heaven. He thinks embroidered Russian
Wedding blouses will take the place of angels;
And windy nights when the crows fly up in front
Of your car will replace all the Psalmists.
He wants us to dance high-hearted, like the bacchae,
Even if it's a waltz. It's a little awkward;
But if you practice, he says, you can do it.
The hard thing is to try to figure out how
To say good-bye--even just going to the grocery.
Another great poem in Section I:
WHY WE DON'T DIE
In late September many voices
Tell you you will die.
That leaf say it. That coolness.
All of them are right.
Our many souls -- what
Can they do about it?
Nothing. They're already
Part of the invisible.
Our souls have been
Longing to go home
Anyway. "It's late," they say.
"Lock the door. Let's go."
The body doesn't agree. It says,
"We buried a little iron
Ball under that tree.
Let's go get it."
I'll be revising this book often.
January 27, 2020
I try to like Bly. I really do. But aside from some interesting images, most of these poems remind me more of Dadaism than thoughtful work. Admittedly, he wrote them first thing each morning before even getting out of bed. I hate to say it, but it shows. Give me Mary Oliver or Billy Collins any day ... poets who write about the same subjects but do so with more wisdom, stronger imagery, and much more clarity. These are self-indulgent and opaque.
I read and reread and often found myself wondering, "What does that even mean?" And this is my second reading of this book. I read it first in the late 90s, saw it on my shelf a couple of days ago and figured I would give it another shot. I'll be passing it along now.
I read and reread and often found myself wondering, "What does that even mean?" And this is my second reading of this book. I read it first in the late 90s, saw it on my shelf a couple of days ago and figured I would give it another shot. I'll be passing it along now.
June 29, 2021
"It's good to have poems
That begin with tea,
And end with God."
This is the first stanza of the Bly poem "The Mouse" which sums up the collection. Most of the poems
are one page in length which makes for a good read-a-poem-a-day book, in the spirit of how the book was written, a poem every morning... Bly goes well with morning coffee, or tea.
That begin with tea,
And end with God."
This is the first stanza of the Bly poem "The Mouse" which sums up the collection. Most of the poems
are one page in length which makes for a good read-a-poem-a-day book, in the spirit of how the book was written, a poem every morning... Bly goes well with morning coffee, or tea.
February 3, 2024
I tried with this one. I really tried. I'm giving myself the win here but I truly only finished 75%. There were just too many poems that I read and found myself at the end of it (or halfway through) saying wtf is this dude even saying. Maybe my tastes will evolve at some point to be able to enjoy this collection but as of right now this is too dense or abstract for my liking.
October 8, 2017
Highlights include: Conversation with the Soul, The Russian, Visiting the 85 year old Poet, It Is So Easy to Give In, My Doubts on Going to Visit a New Friend, Ocean Rain and Music, Looking at Aging Faces, A Christmas Poem, A Conversation with a Mouse.
January 5, 2018
Mostly bitter that Robert Bly was capable of writing better poems, but still resorts to make allusions to pander to critics.. I dont care if he has read Tolstoy or know who Mozart is..Im more concerned about the craft of the poem, the imagery, the metaphors inhabiting the poem.
September 27, 2021
There is some definite technical skill here, and some insight--but after reading through this one I started Googling Robert Bly, and after learning about all his men's rights nonsense, and I know I won't be picking up any more of his stuff.
January 10, 2023
My first time reading this poet. I liked how most poems used a conversational voice and most strived to contemplate some kind of higher purpose or scope of life while reflecting on simple daily observations. I liked the ones that were a bit more abstract.
December 24, 2024
I understand that Bly wrote these before doing anything else in the morning, which is admirable.
A few of the poems with the through line of personified nature are great, but the overall compilation feels more like a writing exercise.
A few of the poems with the through line of personified nature are great, but the overall compilation feels more like a writing exercise.
Read
June 21, 2019I don't know how to rate this.
November 27, 2019
The poet challenged himself to write a poem a day and the results are impressive. Bly's sharp mind is hard at work, observing and making strong connections.
April 9, 2022
2 ⭐️ Short tossed off poems, anecdotal, clever, light.
April 28, 2022
Finished it in one evening. I know that’s now how u read poetry, but I couldn’t stop. It’s an amazing book full of so much wisdom. Absolutely loved it. Would love to red it again.
August 8, 2023
The reader can infer, by page five, that Bly didn’t stay in bed very long to write these poems each morning.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 17, 2024
Profound, these poems say everything in between the lines.
October 21, 2024
Okay, well, I hated that. this is just not the kind of poetry that works for me.
November 5, 2024
The Shocks We Put Our Pitchforks Into
May 17, 2025
Mourning becomes a
place where I am among all
ages of my time
place where I am among all
ages of my time
June 18, 2025
Strong form, I just didn’t find that many spoke to me.
September 1, 2025
How I love these poems. I used to read them out loud to my mother in rush hour traffic on the way to school in 7th grade, and I still remember the frost on the window.
December 19, 2014
Apparently this was Robert Bly's experiment in writing a poem every morning. I, too, have done this experiment, and while I can't claim to have written gems that shine as brightly as his do, the overall results were the same: a few stellar poems, many mediocre ones, and some real duds. Which was quite disappointing to me, because the poems that are good are very good indeed.
From "Bad People": "We write/ poems with lies in them, but they help a little."
From "The Resembalnce Between Your Life and a Dog": "Your life is a dog. He's been hungry for miles,/ Doesn't particularly like you, but gives up, and/ comes in."
From "People Like Us": "You can wander into the wrong classroom,/ And hear great poems lovingly spoken/ By the wrong professor. And you find your soul,/ And greatness has a defender, and even in death/ you're safe."
From "Bad People": "We write/ poems with lies in them, but they help a little."
From "The Resembalnce Between Your Life and a Dog": "Your life is a dog. He's been hungry for miles,/ Doesn't particularly like you, but gives up, and/ comes in."
From "People Like Us": "You can wander into the wrong classroom,/ And hear great poems lovingly spoken/ By the wrong professor. And you find your soul,/ And greatness has a defender, and even in death/ you're safe."
December 26, 2025
Morning Poems by Robert Bly is a collection of quiet poems that echo the feeling of waking up early in the morning into a liminal space where life doesn't yet feel real but, perhaps, is realer than we've been led to believe and it is in that space that Bly's poems take us as they are not a whirlwind but a slow guiding hand that takes us through rooms upon rooms of what makes a life and what makes it lived be it calmly, quietly or, sometimes, tragically which is why I truly enjoyed this book but I must confess that, at times, Bly's poems were so soft, so slight, that I couldn't recognize one poem from the other but I believe that to be a mistake on my part as a reader and not him as a poet thus I can confidently say this is a book all lovers of quiet poetry should read and read well so as not to repeat my mistakes.
February 28, 2011
It's hard to balance the depth of good poetry as well as the bluntness of accessible poetry, but Robert Bly can do it pretty seamlessly. His poems weren't exactly hit and miss. I just understood the hit poems in their entirety and the miss poems were great reads without me completely understanding what he was going for.
He writes very observationally, with compassion and humor. Maybe not in his words, but in his tone. Even in his misery, he's aware that he's writing a poem and trying to get a point across. He doesn't just write his feelings down so it comes off manic and too charged. It's a very calm and collected way of writing poems that he does. He sees the great world around him, with nature, with people, with everything, and he can narrate between the lines.
He writes very observationally, with compassion and humor. Maybe not in his words, but in his tone. Even in his misery, he's aware that he's writing a poem and trying to get a point across. He doesn't just write his feelings down so it comes off manic and too charged. It's a very calm and collected way of writing poems that he does. He sees the great world around him, with nature, with people, with everything, and he can narrate between the lines.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews