Near the Ocean: Poems

by Robert Lowell

Stated first printing bound in black, blind stamped cloth with gold, red and gray lettering. Illustrated by Sidney Nolan. Tall 8vo size, 125 pp. Book is in VG+ condition. There is a light, thin line of dust at the outer edges of the cloth covers. Bookstore label on the second flyleaf. 8" x 9 1/2" hardcover has a slight bow to the front cover. Contents clean, tight, unmarked. No dust jacket.

Genres: Poetry, 20th Century, American

55 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Robert Lowell, born Robert Traill Spence Lowell, IV, was an American poet whose works, confessional in nature, engaged with the questions of history and probed the dark recesses of the self. He is generally considered to be among the greatest American poets of the twentieth century.

His first and second books, Land of Unlikeness (1944) and Lord Weary's Castle (for which he received a Pulitzer Prize in 1947, at the age of thirty), were influenced by his conversion from Episcopalianism to Catholicism and explored the dark side of America's Puritan legacy.

Under the influence of Allen Tate and the New Critics, he wrote rigorously formal poetry that drew praise for its exceptionally powerful handling of meter and rhyme. Lowell was politically involved—he became a conscientious objector during the Second World War and was imprisoned as a result, and actively protested against the war in Vietnam—and his personal life was full of marital and psychological turmoil. He suffered from severe episodes of manic depression, for which he was repeatedly hospitalized.

Partly in response to his frequent breakdowns, and partly due to the influence of such younger poets as W. D. Snodgrass and Allen Ginsberg, Lowell in the mid-fifties began to write more directly from personal experience, and loosened his adherence to traditional meter and form. The result was a watershed collection, Life Studies (1959), which forever changed the landscape of modern poetry, much as Eliot's The Waste Land had three decades before.

Considered by many to be the most important poet in English of the second half of the twentieth century, Lowell continued to develop his work with sometimes uneven results, all along defining the restless center of American poetry, until his sudden death from a heart attack at age 60. Robert Lowell served as a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets from 1962 until his death in 1977.

Reviews

[Rod · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not at all Lowell's best work. Waking Early Sunday Morning and Fourth of July in Maine are charming and beautiful, but after that the whole thing slides slowly but surely off a cliff. Still, even average Lowell is interesting.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very 1950s collection of poetry.

[Scott Ballard · Rating 2 out of 5]

“His treadmill heart will never rest-“