Selected Poems 1930–1989

by Samuel Beckett, David Wheatley (Editor)

It was as a poet that Samuel Beckett launched himself in the little reviews of 1930s Paris, and as a poet that he ended his career. This new selection, from Whoroscope (1930) to 'what is the word' (1988), describes a lifetime's arc of writing. It was as a poet moreover that Beckett made his first breakthrough into writing in French, and the Selected Poems represents work in both languages, including the sequence of brief but highly crafted mirlitonnades, which did so much to usher in the style of his late prose, and come as close as anything he wrote to honouring the ambition to 'bore one hole after another in language, until what lurks behind it - be it something or nothing - begins to seep through.'

Also included are several of Beckett's translations from contemporaries - Apollinaire, Eluard, Michaux, Montale - in versions which count among his own poetic achievements.

Genres: Poetry, Literature

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 31, 1999

About the author

Novels of Samuel Barclay Beckett, Irish writer, include Murphy in 1938 and Malone Dies in 1951; a wider audience know his absurdist plays, such as Waiting for Godot in 1952 and Krapp's Last Tape in 1959, and he won the Nobel Prize of 1969 for literature.

Samuel Barclay Beckett, an avant-garde theater director and poet, lived in France for most of his adult life. He used English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black gallows humor.

People regard most influence of Samuel Barclay Beckett of the 20th century. James Augustine Aloysius Joyce strongly influenced him, whom people consider as one modernist. People sometimes consider him as an inspiration to many later first postmodernists. He is one of the key in what Martin Esslin called the "theater of the absurd". His later career worked with increasing minimalism.

People awarded Samuel Barclay Beckett "for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation".

In 1984, people elected Samuel Barclay Bennett as Saoi of Aosdána.

Reviews

[هدى يحيى · Rating 3 out of 5]

هذه قصيدتي المفضلة لصامويل بيكيت
أحد رواد العبثية الأشهر
وقد وجدتها مترجمة إلى العربية
وأحببت مشاركتها معكم

ماذا سأفعل من دون هذا العالم الذي بلا وجه
غافل غير مبالٍ
حيث ثمة نهائيات ولكن ثمة برهة
حيث كلّ برهة
تُراق في الفراغ في جهالة
أن تكون بلا هذه الموجة
حيث في نهاية المطاف
ينحشر الجسد والظلّ معاً

ماذا سأفعل من دون هذا الصمت حيث تموت التمتمات
اللهثات
نوبات السعار
صوب المأوي
صوب الحبّ
دون هذه السماء التي تحوّم
فوق غبارها الطافح حصى

ماذا سأفعل
ماذا فعلتُ البارحة والنهار الذي قبل أمس
أحملق من المنور باحثاً عن آخَرٍ
يتجوّل مثلي
دوّامةً بعيداً عن كلّ الأحياء
في فضاء متشنّج
وسط أصوات بلا أصوات
تحتشد في غَوْر خفائي
...

[Peycho Kanev · Rating 4 out of 5]

VLADIMIR:
You should have been a poet.
ESTRAGON:
I was. (Gesture towards his rags.) Isn't that obvious?
Silence.

"Waiting for Godot", Samuel Beckett

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Runoja, jotka vaativat pysähtymään. Alkupuolen runot englanniksi, loppupuoli ranskaksi. Jälkimmäinen ryhmä hidasta, ulkoasultaan tyyntä mutta sisällöltään synkkää. Klassiset runojen aiheet kuten rakkaus, kuolema ja elämän kuluminen. Alkupuolen runot oppineen tutkielmia filosofiasta yms. Ilahduttavaa, että tässä painoksessa oli mukana alkukieliset tekstit ja suomentajan laatima selitysosio.

[kyle skinner · Rating 4 out of 5]

first exploration into beckett…initially even harder to digest than ee cummings but once the vernacular became familiar, his control of language was unmatched.

many deeply poignant and sad poems, i quite liked it

[Chris Lilly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Beckett writes exquisite prose, every word considered and placed and perfect, so when he wants to be ugly, he's ugly, and when he wants to be lyrical, his words sing. Then he sits down to write a Poem and produces this heap of cloth-eared piffle. No redeeming features, none. Every poem a chunk of semi-digested concrete written by a too-clever-for-his-own-good first-year Literature student. Agonisingly awful.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

sigo o caminho de areia que desliza
entre o rochedo e a duna
a chuva de Verão chove sobre a minha vida
sobre mim a minha vida que me foge e
[persegue
e acabará no dia em que principiou

amado instante agora que contemplo
na cortina da bruma que vai cedendo o passo
onde não mais pisarei estes longos solos
[movediços
e viverei o tempo de uma porta
aberta agora fechada depois

[Liza Niniashvili · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gentle Anteros
dark and dispassionate
come a grave snake with peace to my quarry
and choke my regret
noble Anteros
and coil at the door of my quarry tomb
and span its rim with a luminous awning
shallow and dim
as a grey tilt of silk
filtering sadly
the weary triumph of morning.
Or mock a duller impurity.

[Liv · Rating 3 out of 5]

Come on, it's Beckett. What else besides deep striking words and amazing influence do you expect from him?

[Julia Florek Turcan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beckett's writings are like the famous photographs of his later years: skeletal, haunting, ravaged.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love him when he’s personal not when he’s just clever and the short form poems of Poems in French 47-49

“I would like my love to die
and the rain to be raining on the graveyard and on me walking the streets mourning her who thought she loved me”

“Age is when to a man
Huddled o'er the ingle
Shivering for the hag
To put the pan in the bed
And bring the toddy
She comes in the ashes
Who loved could not be won
Or won not loved Or some other trouble
Comes in the ashes
Like in that old light
The face in the ashes
That old starlight
On the earth again.”

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lips of her desire are grey
and parted like a silk loop
threatening
a slight wanton wound.
She preys wearily
on sensitive wild things
proud to be torn
by the grave crouch of her beauty.
But she will die and her snare
tendered so patiently
to my tamed watchful sorrow
will break and hang
in a pitiful crescent.

[Nina Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

terrified again of not loving
of loving and not you
of being loved and not by you of knowing not knowing pretending pretending
I and all the others that will love you if they love you
unless they love you

[laudine · Rating 5 out of 5]

void void if not for tatters of songs

[يوسف عبداللطيف · Rating 4 out of 5]

The real-world parallels in "Selected Poems 1930–1989" by "Samuel Beckett" are sharp and directly on point. They reveal a clear understanding of power struggles and ideological control. "Samuel Beckett" deserves credit for making such a bold and clear statement.

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This brief poetry collection, with a spine slimmer than a strand of fettuccine, has two distinct parts: verses from the '30s and verses from the '70s. The earlier section, especially his breakthrough "Whoroscope," feels derivatively Joycean; the second -- and better -- half could be performed in a Beckett fest tomorrow. It's as if after distilling his mentor, the world's premiere absurdist chose to distill himself as well.

[Miro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is pure Beckett, with all of his virtues and vices alike. The poems and texts carefully chosen and assembled for this collection offer an accurate overview of the evolution of Beckett's artistic sensibility, from his early self-conscious and overly intellectual poems to his later staple laconic wit, including his translations/renditions of poems by other authors, where his signature becomes unmistakable, overpowering both the original poem and the poet.