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Cinder: New and Selected Poems
"One of the finest poets of the last fifty years." --Salt
to the Nth, like the truth of an ending
unskeined across the crust of the white field.
Though it happened only once, I
am sending the thought
of the thought
continuing.
To return to
the field before the mowing.
When a goldfinch swayed
on a blue stem stalk,
and the wind and the sun
stirred the hay.
--from "After the Mowing"
Cinder: New and Selected Poems gathers for the first time poetry from across Susan Stewart's thirty-five-year career, including many extraordinary new poems. From brief songs to longer meditative sequences, and always with formal innovation and exquisite precision, Stewart evokes the innocence of childhood, the endangered mysteries of the natural world, and deeply felt perceptions, both acute and shared.
"Stewart explores our insatiable desire to remember and make meaning out of this remembering," Ange Mlinko writes in The Nation. "Stewart's elegiac bent has broadened, over time, from the personal lyric . . . to what might be called the cultural lyric. Fewer and fewer of her poems reference what she alone remembers; they are about what you and I remember."
Reading across this retrospective collection is a singular experience of seeing the unfolding development of one of the most ingenious and moving lyric writers in contemporary poetry.
to the Nth, like the truth of an ending
unskeined across the crust of the white field.
Though it happened only once, I
am sending the thought
of the thought
continuing.
To return to
the field before the mowing.
When a goldfinch swayed
on a blue stem stalk,
and the wind and the sun
stirred the hay.
--from "After the Mowing"
Cinder: New and Selected Poems gathers for the first time poetry from across Susan Stewart's thirty-five-year career, including many extraordinary new poems. From brief songs to longer meditative sequences, and always with formal innovation and exquisite precision, Stewart evokes the innocence of childhood, the endangered mysteries of the natural world, and deeply felt perceptions, both acute and shared.
"Stewart explores our insatiable desire to remember and make meaning out of this remembering," Ange Mlinko writes in The Nation. "Stewart's elegiac bent has broadened, over time, from the personal lyric . . . to what might be called the cultural lyric. Fewer and fewer of her poems reference what she alone remembers; they are about what you and I remember."
Reading across this retrospective collection is a singular experience of seeing the unfolding development of one of the most ingenious and moving lyric writers in contemporary poetry.
- GenresPoetryNonfiction
232 pages, Paperback
Published January 2, 2018
3 people are currently reading
434 people want to read
About the author
Susan Stewart
92 books69 followersSusan Stewart (born 1952) is an American poet, university professor and literary critic.
Professor Stewart holds degrees from Dickinson College (B.A. in English and Anthropology), the Johns Hopkins University (M.F.A. in Poetics) and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D. in Folklore). She teaches the history of poetry, aesthetics, and the philosophy of literature, most recently at Princeton University.
Her poems have appeared in many journals including: The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, Poetry, Tri-Quarterly, Gettysburg Review, Harper's, Georgia Review, Ploughshares, and Beloit Poetry Journal.
In the late 2000s she collaborated with composer James Primosch on a song cycle commissioned by the Chicago Symphony that premiered in the fall of 2009. She has served on the judging panel of the Wallace Stevens Award on six occasions.
In 2005 Professor Stewart was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
About her work, the poet and critic Allen Grossman has written, "Stewart has built a poetic syntax capable of conveying an utterly singular account of consciousness, by the light of which it is possible to see the structure of the human world with a new clarity and an unforeseen precision, possible only in her presence and by means of her art."
(from Wikipedia)
Professor Stewart holds degrees from Dickinson College (B.A. in English and Anthropology), the Johns Hopkins University (M.F.A. in Poetics) and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D. in Folklore). She teaches the history of poetry, aesthetics, and the philosophy of literature, most recently at Princeton University.
Her poems have appeared in many journals including: The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, Poetry, Tri-Quarterly, Gettysburg Review, Harper's, Georgia Review, Ploughshares, and Beloit Poetry Journal.
In the late 2000s she collaborated with composer James Primosch on a song cycle commissioned by the Chicago Symphony that premiered in the fall of 2009. She has served on the judging panel of the Wallace Stevens Award on six occasions.
In 2005 Professor Stewart was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
About her work, the poet and critic Allen Grossman has written, "Stewart has built a poetic syntax capable of conveying an utterly singular account of consciousness, by the light of which it is possible to see the structure of the human world with a new clarity and an unforeseen precision, possible only in her presence and by means of her art."
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 4, 2024
The honeysuckle lost its honey
and the hens took their grain indoors.
Frost leveled the ferny banks
and ice grew on the oars.
I saw her face in the water.
I saw his face in the glass.
Some of us live in the present,
Some of us live in the past,
But it's the bootblacks marching toward the future
who trample the summer grass.
-Susan Stewart, excerpt from the poem "Piano Music for a Silent Movie"
and the hens took their grain indoors.
Frost leveled the ferny banks
and ice grew on the oars.
I saw her face in the water.
I saw his face in the glass.
Some of us live in the present,
Some of us live in the past,
But it's the bootblacks marching toward the future
who trample the summer grass.
-Susan Stewart, excerpt from the poem "Piano Music for a Silent Movie"
January 9, 2018
This was a won free book giveaway & a gift to my eldest daughter who is in the high school portion of her journey to be a writer/journalist. I wasn't planning on reading this because I'm not biggest fan of poetry. I decided to read it anyway. I enjoyed the poetry, some more than others. Maybe I'll read more poetry in the future...
January 3, 2020
I loved these poems. The author’s wit and facility with words made me smile and laugh. At times it caught me up and I took a breath quickly as I saw something I had not seen before, though it was right in front of me. Brilliant! I loved them.
March 6, 2019
Not my thing.
Read
June 20, 2022"boşluğu kabullenip
dünyaya düştü
ve düşüşün yanına doğru
düşen
bütün şeylerin
birincisi oldu."
dünyaya düştü
ve düşüşün yanına doğru
düşen
bütün şeylerin
birincisi oldu."
Read
March 22, 2025Many of these poems did not resonate with me (especially Stewart's earlier work) but the ones that did, wow!
May 1, 2017
A wonderful Greatest Hits collection. I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, and though I didn't recognize the author's name, I'd enjoyed her work before. As I read through the poetry here, I was surprised by how many of the piece I recalled from journals and Best-of anthologies. There were so many poems here that stood out and captivated. When I say that I remembered the poems but not the poet's name, that's high praise in my book. It's a worthwhile collection to read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews