The Complete Poems

by Edwin Denby

Poems explore a variety of themes including friendship, alienation, and art and portray life in New York City.

Genres: Poetry

194 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, this was pretty disappointing, given the names that are tossed around in Denby's company (O'Hara, William Carlos Williams, Whitman, Hart Crane), all of whom I prefer. It's not even that I grew weary of Denby's devotion to the sonnet, really -- I just found these poems very difficult, and frankly not worth the trouble.

It wasn't a total waste of time, though, as there's a decent cat poem early on (and a whole bunch of cats in the later poems), and a poem that reminded me of Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California," of which it may or may not have been derivative. (I'm too lazy to check.)

[Will Cadle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I agree with Tom's review. Denby's a difficult poet to read...there is something of the William Carlos Williams approach to how his poems have to be read several times before one gets the sense of them and can read them aloud, but after having grappled with the oblique comments, the nuanced moods and their mercurial and swift changes, I didn't find I'd gained anything from the process. There's nothing that sticks or stays with you, in my opinion. I understand his reviews of dance performances were considered excellent and were well received; it seems his poems were liked by a small group of writers who thought highly of his work. For that reason I'm hesitant to say: Don't bother. There's probably more to them than I've given time to discover and with a return at some point I might come to appreciate them more.
Here's one I rather like and not as complicated as most of his:

Held
The bright young bones growing turn like green tendrils
but bright in the dark, but turning in slow young years
or like the bright flight of birds curving stilly
still almost and held by the mind's variable speed

In the mind's variable speed the young light body
and the green light hovering on fair sleeping hair
and the birdlike curve of too long limbs, wholly
held, turn in their slow darkness of yearning years.

[Mills College Library]

811.54 D391c 1986