River: A Poem

by Fred Chappell

Water is the unifying image of this book-length poem, the birthday ode of a man just turned thirty-five and still trying to see life steadily and see it whole. The poem itself is a whole, but within it Chappell uses a variety of poetic forms - free verse, rhymed couplets, blank verse, terza rima - that reflect the poet's manifold experience and the diversity of life itself.

Genres: Poetry

51 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1975

About the author

Fred Davis Chappell retired after 40 years as an English professor at University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He was the Poet Laureate of North Carolina from 1997-2002. He attended Duke University.

His 1968 novel Dagon, which was named the Best Foreign Book of the Year by the Academie Française, is a recasting of a Cthulhu Mythos horror story as a psychologically realistic Southern Gothic.

His literary awards include the Prix de Meilleur des Livres Etrangers, the Bollingen Prize, and the T. S. Eliot Prize.

Reviews

[Alejandra Vansant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had just finished this book, though I didn't know it, as Fred Chappell passed away. Rest in peace to a true legend--these words live on in me.

"Sleeping sleeping I cannot halt the faithless instinct to be born." <3