Red Owl: Poems

by Robert Morgan

This book introduces to the Norton imprint a new poet with a strong original voice. Robert Morgan writes out of the central tradition of American poetry. His lyrics, rooted though they are in the specifics of the everyday--in earth and leaves, lakes and stones--reach through and beyond these to transcendence, to mystery; they intertwine animate and inanimate, inner and outer, idea and object. As David Kalstone puts it, Morgan is "faithful to the natural facts and yet so aware of the mysterious instincts which allow us in the first place to see, hear, observe such facts."

Genres: Poetry

73 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Robert Morgan is an American poet, short story writer, and novelist.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Richard Subber · Rating 1 out of 5]

Morgan’s thematic choices tempt the reader to expect a hearty serving of down-to-earth verse. His titles suggest mundane stuff: a woodpile, building a dam, muddy roads, boredom, warm winter days, old photographs…
For my taste, red owl falls short in several ways. There is not a lot of artistic interpretation to gild the descriptive text. Don’t expect a wagon load of insightful nuances and nicely turned musings. Morgan’s poetry suffers from inadequate punctuation and erratic enjambment that will fog the minds of all lovers of rhythm.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
www.richardsubber.com

[meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

usually what i read is all full of Meaning and Concepts and everything in it is a Metaphor For Life, but these poems are just about things themselves. Like "I saw a stump, with cracks in it, beside a road." And that's it. That's what it means. Unsentimental yet soul-nurturing nature imagery. A+, a celebration of the real