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Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems
David Wagoner has won the acclaim of his peers and been compared with some of the most gifted poets in the English Emily Dickinson, James Wright, Robert Frost, Theodore Roethke. The Antioch Review has ascribed to him a"profoundly earthbound sanity," while Publishers Weekly credits him with a "plainspoken formal virtuosity" and a "consistent, pragmatic clarity of perception." His collections have garnered Poetry's Levinson and Union League Prizes, the Ruth Lilly Prize, and nominations for the American Book Award and the National Book Award. For his most recent collection, Walt Whitman Bathing , Wagoner was honored with the Ohioana Book Award in the category of poetry.
Witty, eloquent, and insightful, Traveling Light offers new and familiar treasures from a master observer of both the natural and the human worlds. In a style by turns direct and intricate, Wagoner distills the essential emotions from people's encounters with each other, with nature, and with themselves. Through his compassionate but unblinking eyes, we see ourselves and the world that surrounds us more sharply delineated.
Witty, eloquent, and insightful, Traveling Light offers new and familiar treasures from a master observer of both the natural and the human worlds. In a style by turns direct and intricate, Wagoner distills the essential emotions from people's encounters with each other, with nature, and with themselves. Through his compassionate but unblinking eyes, we see ourselves and the world that surrounds us more sharply delineated.
- GenresPoetry
301 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 19, 2008
READ ALL OF MR. WAGONERS POEMS! THEY ARE MAGNIFICENT!
June 25, 2025
A collection of decent poems by the well known poet; be sure to check out his 2 exquisite poems, conspiciously absent from this volume; the world-class 'Lost' and the lesser known: 'To be sung on the water':
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
To Be Sung on the Water
For Rolfe Humphries, 1894-1969
Whatever you say or sing
On the water should be fading.
The air has far to go
After it leaves you,
Rising and falling down
To the sea like the weather.
You needn't sing at all
If, when you hold still,
The wavering of the wind
Against you, against you
Is simpler and more telling.
Listen, and end now,
Moved only by the water.
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
To Be Sung on the Water
For Rolfe Humphries, 1894-1969
Whatever you say or sing
On the water should be fading.
The air has far to go
After it leaves you,
Rising and falling down
To the sea like the weather.
You needn't sing at all
If, when you hold still,
The wavering of the wind
Against you, against you
Is simpler and more telling.
Listen, and end now,
Moved only by the water.
March 16, 2019
It’s a pleasure to recommend Traveling Light. Wagoner has some heavy duty poetry chops.
Any serious poet can learn from his examples. Repeatedly, as I read through Traveling Light, I wanted to pick up my pen and grab a piece of paper and try my hand at writing the images he sees.
Wagoner finds the right words for those feelings, those realities that you didn’t imagine before you read his intuitions…
...such as, feeding a whole sack of fresh pears to a camel in the zoo:
“…She watched me disappear,
Then with a rippling trudge went back to her stable
To snort, to browse on hay, to remember my sack forever.
She’d been used to having no pears, but hadn’t known it…”
…such as, on meeting a bear in the bear’s own woods:
“…Withdraw without turning and start saying
Softly, monotonously, whatever comes to mind
Without special pleading:
Nothing hurt or reproachful to appeal to his better feelings.
He has none, only a harder life than yours…”
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com
Any serious poet can learn from his examples. Repeatedly, as I read through Traveling Light, I wanted to pick up my pen and grab a piece of paper and try my hand at writing the images he sees.
Wagoner finds the right words for those feelings, those realities that you didn’t imagine before you read his intuitions…
...such as, feeding a whole sack of fresh pears to a camel in the zoo:
“…She watched me disappear,
Then with a rippling trudge went back to her stable
To snort, to browse on hay, to remember my sack forever.
She’d been used to having no pears, but hadn’t known it…”
…such as, on meeting a bear in the bear’s own woods:
“…Withdraw without turning and start saying
Softly, monotonously, whatever comes to mind
Without special pleading:
Nothing hurt or reproachful to appeal to his better feelings.
He has none, only a harder life than yours…”
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews