Selected Poems

by Robert Pinsky

Intense verbal music with a jazz feeling; invention against the grain of expectation; intelligence racing among materials with the variety of a busy street—these have been the qualities of Robert Pinsky's work since his first book, Sadness and Happiness (1975), celebrated for setting a new direction in American poetry. At that time, responding to a question about that book, Pinsky "I would like to write a poetry which could contain every kind of thing, while keeping all the excitement of poetry."

That ambition was realized in a new way with each of his books, including the book-length personal monologue An Explanation of America ; the transformed autobiography of History of My Heart ; the bestselling translation The Inferno of Dante ; and, most recently, the savage, inventive Gulf Music . That variety and renewal are represented in this brilliantly chosen volume.

Genres: Poetry

221 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 12, 2011

About the author

Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry. His published work also includes critically acclaimed translations, including The Inferno of Dante Alighieri and The Separate Notebooks by Czesław Miłosz. He teaches at Boston University and is the poetry editor at Slate.
wikipedia

Reviews

[Edgar Trevizo]

A couple of beautiful, astonishing poems and then the rest. The rest are apples not only fallen far but thrown away from the damn tree.

[Meghan Violet]

when the beloved one hurling her handful of earth staggers at the brink as if buffeted by wind

[Jordan]

Bought this book of poems on a whim at a library sale. Overall, some really incredible poems. Others were too lofty for my taste. Pinsky is obviously very smart.

Here were a few that spoke to me:

The Alphabet of my Dead
The Forgotten
Childhood of Jesus
An Old Man

[Mike]

robert pinsky is a powerhouse, and a true poetical polymath. i almost missed my stop more than once thinking about these poems.

[Jessica]

A touchstone

[Bill]

A fabulous collection

[Jimmy]

I had never read Pinsky before. I assumed since he was a U. S. Poet Laureate that he would be somewhat of a conservative writer, but I was pleasantly surprised. Excellent craftmanship here.

[Restaurant Junkie]

One of America's most legendary poets. Yet, this was the first time I've ever read his work outside of an educational setting. This compilation of poems is presented in reverse chronological order from 2007 to 1975; and for the record, I didn't feel connected with the work until I was nearly at the end. I'm not sure what that says about Pinsky or me.

That said, here are some phrases that left a mark:

“funeral meats”

“macaroni mist on the glass”

“coarse sugar of memory”

When it comes to specific poems, “Icicles” - is simple and beautiful; “Shirt” is captivating, and so is “The Ice-Storm.” I enjoyed the poem “Street Music” - which for some unexplained reason reminded me a lot of a 1980s American Express ad. At the top of my list is probably the poem “Dying,” which is perhaps a little on the nose but also hard not to enjoy.

Overall, this collection was perhaps too much for me. In the future, I may take my Pinsky in smaller doses.

[Carolyn]

Fortunately, I became acquainted with this poet by way of the media. His concern for other poets and need to support the writing world adds to his wonderful talents.

He introduced me to the read aloud idea and the variety of sounds that create music for the listener. His most famous, "Shirt" exudes the multiple views in sight, ear, experience and awe this poem brings.

Music is so important for the reader and his words reveal his love for the dual approach coming from his words and instruments along with rhythm. The world expands when you are in the sphere of Robert Pinsky!

[Katherine Jones]

These poems are high art poems, which are always a delightful academic challenge. But what I liked best about them was the incredibly simple way Robert Pinsky includes all humans in the experience of the poems. Read "Window" where he shows how common our experiences are to all ethnic groups. The term "windhold" enchants me, so I may have been influenced by that. Still, thats not the only poem where he reaches effortlessly to include all in his poems.

[Sami Al-Khalili]

A select few poems yet an admiration way beyond the league of extraordinary. Articulate with splendor.

[Maria]

Several hauntingly beautiful lines/ideas scattered throughout, but often overcrowded by mediocre ramblings

[Tom]

A bit dark. Interior. Paints a picture.

[Tyler]

Robert Pinsky experimented plenty, and some of his work can be weird or off-putting. Reading this volume, that weirdness becomes contextualized in the very obvious potency and skill of a volume, for instance, like The Want Bone. I feel more encouraged to praise Pinsky than ever before.

[Diann Blakely]

The publication of Pinsky’s SELECTED POEMS was a major event of 2011. A glance back at previous National Poetry Month columns I've written for one venue or another enumerate his many and varied attempts on behalf of poetry not his own, thus the very appearance of this carefully honed volume shine all the brightly--and eerily so when one finds “Gulf Music” and considers the color the sky turns in advance of a hurricane.  Pinsky has written arguably the best poem about Katrina by choosing instead the 1900 Galveston hurricane as his subject. No one even knows the precise number of people who lost their lives in that unnamed horror, and “Gulf Music”’s disjunctions mirror perfectly its anonymous chaos and clashes, of which I have room to quote only two-and-a-half lines: “After so much renunciation / And invention, is this the image of the promised end? / All music haunted by the music of the dead forever.”

To name only two very much alive and vibrant young men who have been haunted by the music of past greats, Todd Hellems and Seph Rodney came to my attention via Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project, which are now available, often with commentary by the readers, on YouTube. That Hellems, who chose Countee Cullen's "Yet I Do Marvel," was even allowed to make the recording is a testimony to Pinsky's heroism on behalf of the art, for the Cullen estate had held up production for a decade for the most base homophobic reasons (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjakII...) and Hellems's own heroism is to be commended as well, for, like Cullen, Hellems is both African-American and gay and grew up in an environment friendly to neither his race, his sexual orientation, or his intelligence. As for Rodney, who is Jamaican now living in London, his prelude to reading Plath's "Nick and the Candlestick" is touched with the same sweetness, and the same courage, despite recognized obstacles to finding love in this world, as the poem itself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvNE2h....

As for Pinsky, his "selected poems" continues to grow, at least for those who keep watch, as I do, for each new work by him--or news item--that appears: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poet... http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010... and http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=2011... http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poet....

[Michael Palkowski]

Full of history, meaning and a sense of melody with loads of depth and erudition but his composition and style occasionally loses me. Pinsky has a habit of writing in a detached, single framed kind of manner instead of thinking of a piece as a whole. Which gives the impression occasionally of a load of different flickering images, which means he tells you rather than taking time to show. Some poems are overly manic and lacking genuine skill of using new frames such as "I drowned in the fire of having you", It's melancholic fluff.

He uses that shopping basket method where he tries to overflow and teem his pieces out until they burst in the reader's mind, but it's just images and sounds without appropriate simmering and development. His wording reflects this at times "The Pigeons from the wrinkled awning flutter/ to reconnoiter, mutter, stare and shift/" for example.

[Steve]

Learned of this book on Friday, 20 May 2011, interview with the author by Jeffrey Brown. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertain...

[Ross Cohen]

I had the pleasure of hearing Robert Pinsky read while I studied at B.U.. To my ear, no other living poet pays as much attention to the acoustics of poetry than he does. And this book, a small, yet potent, offering of his work to date is as much a pleasure for the ears as it is for the mind.

[Chris]

3.5 stars. I'm not a big fan of poetry, and some of these reminded me why. I just wasn't able to unpack anything from them. But some of them, especially when Pinsky talks about the past, are beautifully laden with loss and struggle.

[Duff]

Enjoyed the scope of Pinsky's work in the "selected". Great to read, some fine moments, but I wonder if I will go back to it regularly? That is my only reservation on this beautiful collection.

[Abby]

Maybe I need to try Pinsky again. I'm not sure if I "got" him.

[Tom Romig]

Lucid, bracing, moving. Read "Shirt" and see if you don't agree.

[E.]

Especially enjoyed reading the final poem "Sadness and Happiness" aloud this morning to my new born son.

[Kevin Braswell]

Decent. Word Jazz!

[Eric]

Some stuff I understood, some I didn't. Meh, he was on the Simpsons, he's cool.