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Three Books: Body Rags; Mortal Acts, Mortal Words; The Past
This volume brings together BODY RAGS and MORTAL ACTS, MORTAL WORDS and THE PAST, three books that are central to the life’s work of one of the masters of contemporary poetry. Included here are many of Galway Kinnell’s best-loved and most anthologized poems. Kinnell has revised some of the poems for this new edition, and comments on his working method in a prefatory note.
- GenresPoetry
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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108 people want to read
About the author
Galway Kinnell
119 books190 followersKinnell studied at Princeton University, graduating in 1948. He later obtained a Master's degree from the University of Rochester.
As a young man, Kinnell served in the US Navy and traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. His first volume of poetry, What a Kingdom It Was, was published in 1960.
Kinnell became very involved in the U.S. civil rights movement upon his return, joining CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) as a field worker and participating in a number of marches and other civil actions.
Kinnell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for Selected Poems (1980), a MacArthur Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, the 1974 Shelley Prize of the Poetry Society of America, and the 1975 Medal of Merit from National Institute of Arts and Letters. He served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007.
As a young man, Kinnell served in the US Navy and traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. His first volume of poetry, What a Kingdom It Was, was published in 1960.
Kinnell became very involved in the U.S. civil rights movement upon his return, joining CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) as a field worker and participating in a number of marches and other civil actions.
Kinnell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for Selected Poems (1980), a MacArthur Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, the 1974 Shelley Prize of the Poetry Society of America, and the 1975 Medal of Merit from National Institute of Arts and Letters. He served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
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May 8, 2016I’m late to Galway Kinnell. Much too late. But it’s better than never having arrived, I’ll tell you. This collection houses three of Kinnell’s works – Body Rags, Mortal Acts, Mortal Words, and The Past – in one dust jacket. Thus, unlike most 100-or-less paged poetry books, it weighs in at 200.
As a neophyte in twilight, I got to enjoy poems for the first time that most fans of poetry read years ago – “Fergus Falling,” “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps” (copied on my blog page, link on profile page), and “St. Francis and the Sow,” for instance. All of these are in the Mortal book.
But I also found much to admire in the more retrospective and poignant collection, The Past, first released in 1985. There you’ll find a typical Kinnell poem, unassuming, yet, on second thought, profound:
The Olive Wood Fire
When Fergus woke crying at night
I would carry him from his crib
to the rocking chair and sit holding him
before the fire of thousand-year-old olive wood.
Sometimes, for reasons I never knew
and he has forgotten, even after his bottle the big tears
would keep on rolling down his big cheeks
–the left cheek always more brilliant than the right–
and we would sit, some nights for hours, rocking
in the light eking itself out of the ancient wood,
and hold each other against the darkness,
his close behind and far away in the future,
mine I imagined all around.
One such time, fallen half-asleep myself,
I thought I heard a scream
–a flier crying out in horror
as he dropped fire on he didn’t know what or whom,
or else a child thus set aflame–
and sat up alert. The olive wood fire
had burned low. In my arms lay Fergus,
fast asleep, left cheek glowing, God.
Plain-speaking, mostly, but deeper than its simplicity at first reveals.
Maybe it’s my New England roots. As a Vermont resident, Galway wrote his share of poems about pigs and ponds, trees and woods, fishing and farmhouses. Those topics hit my sweet spot. But there’s more than topic at play. His way with words is a cut above some of the other poets I’ve read. I reread some poems before going on, even, and know I will return to others in the future. (What better praise?) I’ll be reading more this summer, too… I know it’s too late to miss him, but I do.
As a neophyte in twilight, I got to enjoy poems for the first time that most fans of poetry read years ago – “Fergus Falling,” “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps” (copied on my blog page, link on profile page), and “St. Francis and the Sow,” for instance. All of these are in the Mortal book.
But I also found much to admire in the more retrospective and poignant collection, The Past, first released in 1985. There you’ll find a typical Kinnell poem, unassuming, yet, on second thought, profound:
The Olive Wood Fire
When Fergus woke crying at night
I would carry him from his crib
to the rocking chair and sit holding him
before the fire of thousand-year-old olive wood.
Sometimes, for reasons I never knew
and he has forgotten, even after his bottle the big tears
would keep on rolling down his big cheeks
–the left cheek always more brilliant than the right–
and we would sit, some nights for hours, rocking
in the light eking itself out of the ancient wood,
and hold each other against the darkness,
his close behind and far away in the future,
mine I imagined all around.
One such time, fallen half-asleep myself,
I thought I heard a scream
–a flier crying out in horror
as he dropped fire on he didn’t know what or whom,
or else a child thus set aflame–
and sat up alert. The olive wood fire
had burned low. In my arms lay Fergus,
fast asleep, left cheek glowing, God.
Plain-speaking, mostly, but deeper than its simplicity at first reveals.
Maybe it’s my New England roots. As a Vermont resident, Galway wrote his share of poems about pigs and ponds, trees and woods, fishing and farmhouses. Those topics hit my sweet spot. But there’s more than topic at play. His way with words is a cut above some of the other poets I’ve read. I reread some poems before going on, even, and know I will return to others in the future. (What better praise?) I’ll be reading more this summer, too… I know it’s too late to miss him, but I do.
October 18, 2017
There are so many terrific and familiar poems in this collection of Kinnell's early books -- After Making Love We Hear Footsteps, St. Francis and the Sow, The Fly, Teh Man Splitting Wood in the Daybreak, Flying Home -- it is completely forgivable that the author rewrote some of them for this edition.
If you like your poetry accessible, lyric, full of images, unafraid of heart, this is a fine book.
If you like your poetry accessible, lyric, full of images, unafraid of heart, this is a fine book.
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July 9, 2010This collection is a reissue of three books, Body Rags, Mortal Acts, Mortal Words, and The Past published in 1968, 1989, and 1985, respectively. The book serves as the best entry point for Kinnell. From the beginning it introduces Kinnell’s ability to take two seemingly incongruous subject matters and bring them into juxtaposition which is not only illuminating but poignant.
August 22, 2020
Silly me. I’ve encountered and enjoyed poems by Kinnell now and then, but it wasn’t until reading this book (or three) that I realized he wasn’t Irish, but born in the U.S. I also didn’t know he was a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights movement, so now he’s a hero to me on and off the page.
I didn’t enjoy the three books equally. Published in 1968, 1980, and 1985 (he was born in ’27, so I’ll let you do the math), each captured a life stage. Body Rags was more political, dare I say epic, poems from the time he was actively crusading or looking back on who and what he encountered. Important. I’ll give them that, but I’m a bigger fan of everyday life or human nature poems.
I was thrilled to turn the page to the “Mortal” book, in which I loved almost every poem (and that is rare, only my favorite poets tend to score that many hits with my quirky tastes). Kinnell apparently started his family late, so these are sweet love poems to kids, home, wife, and neighbors.
Although published only five years later, The Past was already channeling the obsession of older poets: death. He lived for a long time after (2014), but by our fifties we begin experiencing frequent loss: parents, neighbors, role models (he celebrates poets he misses), and the unfortunate friends who go before their time. He includes in memoriam poems to Richard Hugo and James Wright.
One of my favorite poems is one I’ve enjoyed many times before without remembering it was Kinnell’s: “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps.” It begins
“For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run…”
I especially enjoyed the mix of wry humor with pathos in this poem, all the more since I was recently a guest editor for a poetry challenge and fretted long and hard over the rejection letters. From “The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students,”
“I swear to you, it was just my way
of cheering myself up, as I licked
the stamped, self-addressed envelopes,
the game I had of trying to guess
which one of you, this time,
has poisoned his glue. I did care.
I did read each poem entire.
I did say everything I thought
in the mildest words I knew…”
I didn’t enjoy the three books equally. Published in 1968, 1980, and 1985 (he was born in ’27, so I’ll let you do the math), each captured a life stage. Body Rags was more political, dare I say epic, poems from the time he was actively crusading or looking back on who and what he encountered. Important. I’ll give them that, but I’m a bigger fan of everyday life or human nature poems.
I was thrilled to turn the page to the “Mortal” book, in which I loved almost every poem (and that is rare, only my favorite poets tend to score that many hits with my quirky tastes). Kinnell apparently started his family late, so these are sweet love poems to kids, home, wife, and neighbors.
Although published only five years later, The Past was already channeling the obsession of older poets: death. He lived for a long time after (2014), but by our fifties we begin experiencing frequent loss: parents, neighbors, role models (he celebrates poets he misses), and the unfortunate friends who go before their time. He includes in memoriam poems to Richard Hugo and James Wright.
One of my favorite poems is one I’ve enjoyed many times before without remembering it was Kinnell’s: “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps.” It begins
“For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run…”
I especially enjoyed the mix of wry humor with pathos in this poem, all the more since I was recently a guest editor for a poetry challenge and fretted long and hard over the rejection letters. From “The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students,”
“I swear to you, it was just my way
of cheering myself up, as I licked
the stamped, self-addressed envelopes,
the game I had of trying to guess
which one of you, this time,
has poisoned his glue. I did care.
I did read each poem entire.
I did say everything I thought
in the mildest words I knew…”
February 20, 2023
I’ve never really been sure how to review a book of poetry—particularly a book of poetry that is the classic anthology sort of thing poets create with collections. Also, this book is three in one—so three different collections. Galway Kinnell is a poet I read a bit of in college. His great poem “The Bear” is the one I’ll always remember. With that poem and its last line’s reflection on hunting and living off of poetry, I did enjoy others in these collections that reflected on language and art. He has some good “love-making” poems—and some blah ones too. I really liked his elegiac memorial poems in the last collection here—especially those of other poets. I’m not sure I benefited from reading all these poems crammed into a single collection. It also took me a year to go through. And I come out on the other side of that year still liking “The Bear” best of all.
January 25, 2021
One of my favorite poets.
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April 2, 2015“Saint Francis and the Sow”
The bud stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing....
The bud stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing....
January 4, 2009
I think we all know that Galway Kinnell's poetry is absolutely lovely.
Currently reading
January 14, 2009Technically only reading Body Rags but apparently that doesn't exist in good reads world
June 3, 2010
Kinnell has not been on my radar until recently. I cannot believe his work! It reminds me of Neruda, Whitman and is filled with sensual language and subject matter. Lovers rule!
January 14, 2011
What a beautiful piece of work!
February 18, 2012
When one has lived alone for a long time
November 12, 2014
One of the best modern American poets. I will read these poems over and over. Rest in peace.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews