Hello, Darkness: The collected poems of L. E. Sissman

by L.E. Sissman, Peter Davison (Editor)

Trade paperback. Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry in 1979, this contains 134 poems, including 3 complete collections, originally published in 1968 to 1971 - Dying: an Introduction, Scattered Returns, Pursuit of Honor - and also a posthumous collection of 34 poems not previously published in book form. Edited and with a preface by Peter Davison. Index of titles. 294 pp.

Genres: Poetry

294 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Janée Baugher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author uses rhyme/meter and conversational diction in his poems on death/dying. This book is highly accessible in that readers need not be privy to elements of craft to appreciate this collection. Recommended to me by physical therapist poet, Timothy Kelly.

[Brian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read this book because I'm doing some research on Boston poets around 1950. Sissman was at Harvard with Hall, Bly, Rich, Ashbery, Koch, O'Hara, and Peter Davison, among others. Had heard his poems were lost treasures and hoped to find something like a fresh voice with elements of O'Hara, Larkin, and that annoyingly misogynist poet who's been in the New Yorker a lot lately (can't remember his name off hand), but was disappointed to find mostly witty formalism that doesn't even live up to the most average of Davison's work.