What do you think?
Rate this book
Selected Poems
From the narratives of army life during World War Two to the domestic and familial scenes of his final book, this selection presents Jarrell's art at its best, comparable in power and variety to that of his contemporaries Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop.
- GenresPoetryLiterature
115 pages, Hardcover
Published April 19, 1990
1 person is currently reading
89 people want to read
About the author
Randall Jarrell
110 books94 followersPoems, published in collections such as
Little Friend, Little Friend
(1945), of American poet and critic Randall Jarrell concern war, loneliness, and art.
He wrote eight books of poetry, five anthologies, a novel, Pictures from an Institution . Maurice Sendak illustrated his four books for children, and he translated Faust: Part I and The Three Sisters , which the studio of actors performed on Broadway; he also translated two other works. He received the National Book Award for poetry in 1960, served as poet laureate at the Library of Congress in 1957 and 1958, and taught for many years at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He joined as a member of the American institute of arts and letters.
He wrote eight books of poetry, five anthologies, a novel, Pictures from an Institution . Maurice Sendak illustrated his four books for children, and he translated Faust: Part I and The Three Sisters , which the studio of actors performed on Broadway; he also translated two other works. He received the National Book Award for poetry in 1960, served as poet laureate at the Library of Congress in 1957 and 1958, and taught for many years at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He joined as a member of the American institute of arts and letters.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 4, 2020
The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.
The first twenty pages of this collection were stunning. I found myself mesmerized, deeply impacted. The reactions within the verse were blunted, sometimes gaping. I returned to the tome as the day sped along. My subsequent stops were not as eventful. There was an effort at scripted empathy. Then as matters wound down and the poet (close in age to myself) looks at a photograph of his parents holding him as an infant. He recognizes that he is much older at that moment than what his parents were when captured in such a hopeful instant. That particular torque wasn't as effective, particularly in a scrum of pages where Proust is continuously mentioned, almost a talisman. My indecisive pause is meaningful, perhaps only in these human loops of flawed reasoning.
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.
The first twenty pages of this collection were stunning. I found myself mesmerized, deeply impacted. The reactions within the verse were blunted, sometimes gaping. I returned to the tome as the day sped along. My subsequent stops were not as eventful. There was an effort at scripted empathy. Then as matters wound down and the poet (close in age to myself) looks at a photograph of his parents holding him as an infant. He recognizes that he is much older at that moment than what his parents were when captured in such a hopeful instant. That particular torque wasn't as effective, particularly in a scrum of pages where Proust is continuously mentioned, almost a talisman. My indecisive pause is meaningful, perhaps only in these human loops of flawed reasoning.
January 9, 2019
"90 North" is one of my all-time favorite poems; I have the last third memorized. And I have always been a fan of Jarrell's World War II poetry. I bought this book ages ago so I would have easy access to some of those beloved poems. Then I never got around to reading it because I felt like I was already familiar with many of the poems in it.
Finally reading it now from cover to cover, well, I still love the WWII poems, but so many of the others.... they haven't all aged well. Some of them seem mired in details, and some of them are disturbingly condescending--"A Girl in a Library," for instance. I'm not the biggest Auden fan, but "Musee des Beaux Arts" is a far better poem than "The Old and the New Masters," Jarrell's poem in response to it.
I wish I liked this better but I just don't.
Finally reading it now from cover to cover, well, I still love the WWII poems, but so many of the others.... they haven't all aged well. Some of them seem mired in details, and some of them are disturbingly condescending--"A Girl in a Library," for instance. I'm not the biggest Auden fan, but "Musee des Beaux Arts" is a far better poem than "The Old and the New Masters," Jarrell's poem in response to it.
I wish I liked this better but I just don't.
October 14, 2021
One of the remarkable things about Jarrell's work, as exhibited in this selection, is his ability to give voice to female characters and embody their inner lives. Of course my favorite remains "90 North", but there is strong work in many other poems here.
Reading a second time, fall 2021.
Reading a second time, fall 2021.
August 6, 2008
PPE 6/25/08
April 22, 2022
“Really I began the day
Not with a man’s wish: “May this day be different,”
But with the birds’ wish: “May this day
Be the same day, the day of my life.”
Not with a man’s wish: “May this day be different,”
But with the birds’ wish: “May this day
Be the same day, the day of my life.”
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews