About Now: Collected Poems

by Joanne Kyger

For decades, Joanne Kyger has played a crucial role in California's poetry scene. Her poetry has been influenced by her studies in Zen Buddhism and her connection to the poets of Black Mountain, the San Francisco Renaissance, and the Beat Generation. Ron Silliman describes Kyger's poetry as a point of convergence for all "post-avant" literary tendencies the later half of the 20th Century: "You can hear her influence everywhere, from Naropa, to the later generations of the New York School, to Language poetry. Get a fix on Joanne Kyger and a half century of American poetry suddenly comes clearly into focus." This latest collection may serve as the definitive one, highlighting an excellent sampling of her work.

Genres: Poetry

800 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2006

About the author

Joanne Kyger was an American poet. She published more than twenty books of poetry and prose. Kyger lived in Bolinas, California since 1968, where she edited the local newspaper. She also occasionally taught at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics of Naropa University, in Boulder, Colorado.

Reviews

[Beth Follett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot thank poet Hoa Nyugen enough for introducing me to the Collected Poems of U.S. poet Joanne Kyger. Anyone with meditation and yogic practices will find this work immensely rewarding, for how she focuses on Here and Now, on the minutiae of everyday life, and all with such apparent and abundant love.