Collected and new poems, 1924-1963

by Mark van Doren

hundreds of poems

Genres: Poetry

Paperback

First published June 1, 1963

About the author

Mark van Doren was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, Whittaker Chambers, and Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Collected Poems 1922–1938 and he was literary editor of The Nation, in New York City (1924–1928), and its film critic, 1935 to 1938.

Reviews

[Mir]

The Storyteller

He talked, and as he talked
Wallpaper came alive;
Suddenly ghosts walked;
And four doors were five;

Calendars ran backward,
And maps had mouths;
Ships went tackward
In a great drowse;

Trains climbed trees,
And soon dripped down
Like honey of bees
On the cold brick town.

He had wakened a worm
In the world’s brain,
And nothing stood firm
Until day again.

[M. Sarki · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mark Van Doren won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Collected Poems 1922–1938. I am flabbergasted how he achieved so much respect in regards to his poetry of such colossal mediocrity. Van Doren was also a writer and a critic, as well as a scholar and a professor of English for nearly forty years at Columbia University. He inspired Beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He was for a time literary editor of The Nation. He is a significant example, and part of the reason, for why, in general, I hate poetry.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't read much poetry, but I picked up this collection at the Book Den in Oak Bluffs, MA, and read it during a snowy winter and spring on the Island. It was well worth the $8 and the half hour spent in a chilly barn poking through boxes of used books.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit uneven, but when a good poem hits man...it really hits.