Robinson Jeffers: Poet and Prophet

by James Karman

The precipitous cliffs, rolling headlands, and rocky inlets of the California coast come alive in the poetry of John Robinson Jeffers, an icon of the environmental movement. In this concise and accessible biography, Jeffers scholar James Karman reveals deep insights into this passionate and complex figure and establishes Jeffers as a leading American poet of prophetic vision. In a move that would define his life's work, Jeffers' family relocated to California from Pennsylvania in 1903 when he was sixteen. While a graduate student at the University of Southern California he met Una Call Kuster, a student who was the wife of a prominent Los Angeles attorney, and they began a scandalous affair that made the front page of the Los Angeles Times . They eventually married and escaped to Carmel, California to write poetry; there they would spend the rest of their lives. At the height of his popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, Jeffers became one of the few poets ever featured on the cover of Time magazine, and posthumously put on a U.S. postage stamp. Writing by kerosene lamp in a granite tower that he had built himself, his vivid and descriptive poetry of the coast evoked the difficulty and beauty of the wild and inspired photographers such as Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. He was known for long narrative blank verse that shook up the national literary scene, but in the 1940s his interest in the Greek classics led to several adaptations which were staged on Broadway to great success. Inspiring later artists from Charles Bukowski to Czesław Miłosz and even the Beach Boys, Robinson Jeffers' contribution to American letters is skillfully brought back out of the shadows of history in this compelling biography of a complex man of poetic genius who wrote so powerfully of the astonishing beauty of nature.

Genres: Poetry, Biography, Nonfiction, History

260 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2015

Reviews

[Jerrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This biography puts Jeffers's poetry in the context of his life and beliefs, as well as the political and literary movements of the time. This did help me understand how his poetry eventually fell out of favor.

[Eric Heller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book. Part biography, part analysis, completely engaging. For someone like me who has managed to avoid coming across Robinson Jeffers until my 55th year, and to find myself utterly transfixed by him, feels like an unexpected gift. Having such a wise and knowledgeable guide into Jeffers work - with a poet’s craft of language himself - is like a second one.

[Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Until this biography I really did not know much about Robinson Jeffers except that his name cropped up from time to time in other bios. I'm glad that I read this and complement Karman on making me want to definitely learn more and especially get into Jeffer's poems. I found it fascinating that Jeffers could go so far in a short time with a Time Magazine cover then practically fall off the edge of the world, but I found much to like even as I had reservations about his personality and adventures. Definitely keeping an eye out for a hard copy to place in my library.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have reservations about Jeffers poetry - and his politics. But Karman puts together a scholarly, well-argued, often convincing case for both. Certainly his environmental stances alone earn him high standing, and there is enough good in the poems to merit a critical reconsideration, even if other aspects of his views and verse remain troubling.

[Leif · Rating 2 out of 5]

Karman takes up a fairly simple structure to this short biography of America's nearly-forgotten (un)favourite poet: describe historical blocks in broad strokes, describe relevant sections of Robinson Jeffers' life, review major plots of Jeffers' work during that time. Rinse and repeat. There's not much actual digging or thick explanations, and little overt acknowledgement of what various critical lens might see in Jeffers or his work - class, gender, race, sex, anti-colonial, etc. - to the extent that these lenses are highly conspicuous through their absence.

What comes across is a picture of a man whose privileged life allowed him to view European culture at its best, seeing in it what ostensibly were its dying blazes of glory, only to step back traumatized at war, disintegration, and the expansion of humanity beyond his recognition: not just two world wars, but the shifts in American society and the transformation from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. This fairly simple schema is filtered through his decision to settle in California, which Karman briefly notes stood for many idyllic fixations in the United States (you wouldn't know which, as he doesn't delve too deeply here, as is usual), and which then influenced Jeffers' work in the form of a deep devotion to what others might call deep ecology, albeit auto-didactic and somewhat untutored.

I've been wanting a good overview of Robinson Jeffers. This... didn't really hit the notes for me. It bodes ill when obvious critical takes are foreclosed - repressing Jeffers' obvious colonial relationship with nature does no favours, nor does hiding his privileged background, for example. As a literary biography, I would also expect more in the way of actual reading, but perhaps that's out of fashion for this type of thing. General summaries of plots without even basic critique of themes... well. Blessedly, these absences make the whole thing very quick, which I suppose was the intent as Karman makes clear in the opening pages. But I have to say, as Karman is clearly well versed in Jeffers' biography and work, I would have hoped for a little more in even a survey biography of a poet. And of a prophet? Well, readers will have to guess what that part of the subtitle entails. I haven't a clue.

[J. Alfred · Rating 3 out of 5]

Your fears at the "Prophet" in the title are only partly justified. There is some hero-worship, but it is tolerable and infrequent. Mostly this is a strong, well paced read with a good deal of historical background in each of its chapters. Jeffers's publications are examined broadly, without much specificity, the tantalizing way you want from an introduction (and which is especially worthwhile with Jeffers, who wrote so many long narratives that no one knows about, most of which sound more or less indistinguishable). Doesn't talk much about the poems I like the most, but gives a coherent reading of Jeffers's life and corpus. A worthy read if you're interested in the poet. And you should be.

[Joan]

Five stars if you’re writing a paper on Jeffers for a class and need a reference but also want it to be comprehensible and easily digestible.

Three stars if you want more than the major beats of Jeffers’ life, some brief descriptions of world events at the time and how they both influenced his work.

I’m not really sure if it draws a solid conclusion as to why Jeffers and his work are relatively ignored in contemporary discussions and basic US literature classes. Depending on your political and philosophical leanings, there’s enough in this biography that you’ll come to your own.

[Randy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd never heard of Robinson Jeffers until I saw an episode of "Ghost Adventures" where they examined Tor House. Intrigued I wanted to learn more.

I came to find that four of his poems are included in "Norton Anthology of American Lit" between Ezra Pound & Hilda Doolittle and Marianne Moore & TS Eliot

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an intellectual challenge for me to read. I was fascinated by the history of this era of writing, the 1920's, 30's, thru early 60's, and Jeffers contemporarys.

[Ruth Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just randomly picked this book up to add to my poetry knowledge and was glad I did.

[Scott Bielinski · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine biography of the 20th-century's most overlooked poet.

[bookinglibrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Setting Robinson Jeffers' life and work in its cultural (and environmental) context makes this book invaluable in appreciating his poetry and his prophecies.

[Frank · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't quite consider this a real biography. It's just a summing up of some known facts about Jeffers plus a discussion of some of his poetry in chronological order, fleshed out with some tidbits about the historical context geared towards readers with high school knowledge of those times or less. E.g.: ‘Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. This, for America, marked the official beginning of World War II. Joining Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and more than a dozen other countries in a confederation called the Allies, the United States faced an Axis coalition composed of Germany, Italy, Japan, and their supporters.’ No shit!

On the other hand, a critic describing Jeffers’ poetry is quoted ‘describing him as “a singular figure in American letters” and “a ‘poet’ in the European sense of the word.”’ – and now we get no explanation at all. Yet I haven't a clue what is meant here by 'poet in the European sense of the word'. Probably the original writer and the biographer don't either.

Also, the stance of the biography seems slightly anti-intellectual, detractors of Jeffers' poetry are implicitly dismissed for preferring academic poetry with puns and all that.

A useful book for those wanting a quick and dirty overview of Jeffers' career. But the case it seems to also want to make for him as still a major poet isn't very convincing to me. Apart form a couple of interesting short nature poems, I mainly experience his body of work as some bizarre outcrop in the landscape – more interesting for having once been so popular (if the biographer is to be believed) than for its intrinsic quality.

As I said, some incidental felicitous verses excluded of course. And who knows, maybe the winds of taste will one day change to the extent that readers will come to view him as the pre-eminent poet of his generation once more.
Not me, and not on the strength of this biography.

[Gene Bowker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poet of California's Big Sur

I was reminded of Jeffers watching a recent episode of Ghost Adventures which was filmed at his home in Carmel.

This book gives his biography as well as an introduction to his work. His work is not for everyone. Conservatives will find much to offend them in his words.

[Dianne · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fair introduction to Jeffers as a poet in his time, though I would have liked to have had a bit more on his prescient realization of the power of the natural world and the ecological concerns at issue today.

[Mills College Library]

Biog J452k 2015