Till I End My Song: A Gathering of Last Poems

by Harold Bloom

“A colossus among critics. . . . His enthusiasm for literature is a joyous intoxicant.” — New York Times In this charming anthology, esteemed literary critic Harold Bloom collects the last poems of history's most important and celebrated poets. As with his immensely popular Best Poems of the English Language, Bloom has carefully curated and annotated the final works of one hundred poets in Till I End My Song , with selections from John Keats, T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Dylan Thomas, Robert Frost, D.H. Lawrence, W.H. Auden, John Milton, Herman Melville, Emily Brontë, and others. Written with the same wise and discerning commentary of earlier books—including his acclaimed Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human and The Book of J — Till I End My Song is a moving and provocative meditation on the relationship between art, meaning, and ultimately, death, from the literary titan of our time.

Genres: Poetry, Death, Anthologies, Reference

416 pages, Hardcover

First published September 27, 2010

About the author

Harold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.

Reviews

[Courtney Johnston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it possible to be a literate teenage girl and not become somewhat obsessed with death poetry? I still remember finding Richard Brautigan's 'Castle of the Cormorants' as an 18 year-old, and discovering a hitherto unknown gothic side to myself, that was bewitched by its sexy dark fragile magic:

Hamlet with
a cormorant
under his arm
married Ophelia.
She was still
wet from drowning.
She looked like
a white flower
that had been
left in the
rain too long
I love you,
said Ophelia,
and I love
that dark
bird you
hold in
your arms.

Brautigan doesn't appear in Bloom's anthology; neither does E.E. Cummings, despite his frequent, friendly invocations of death

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

[From 'since feeling is first']

and another favourite, 'suppose'

Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.

young death sits in a cafe
smiling, a pierce of money held between
his thumb and first finger

(i say "will he buy flowers" to you
and "Death is young
life wears velour trousers
life totters, life has a beard" i

say to you who are silent.--"Do you see
Life? he is there and here,
or that, or this
or nothing or an old man 3 thirds
asleep, on his head
flowers, always crying
to nobody something about les
roses les bluets
yes,
will He buy?
Les belles bottes--oh hear
, pas cheres")

and my love slowly answered I think so. But
I think I see someone else

there is a lady, whose name is Afterwards
she is sitting beside young death, is slender;
likes flowers.

'Till I End My Song' is not a collection of poems about death however. Bloom lays out his selection criteria in his very enjoyable introduction. Some are literally last poems. Some were written by the poets to mark the end, though they may have continued to live and write for a while. And others mark 'an imaginative conclusion to a poetic career.' All, he states firmly, are present because of their 'artistic excellence'.

Bloom doesn't go straight for the obvious choices. Dylan Thomas is represented not by 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night', but by 'Poem on His Birthday'; Auden not by 'Funeral Blues' ("Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone / Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone") but by 'A Lullaby', a far more curious, intimate and unsettling thing.

The poems are all by English and American writers (reflecting Bloom's areas of interest and expertise, I assume, but leaving a howling gap where you wonder how Japanese or Scandinavian or Indian poets approach these topics). The collection opens with Edmund Spenser's 'Prothalamion', a poem written for the double wedding of the daughters of his patrons good friend, and from which the book takes its title ('Against their Brydale day, which was long long; Sweet Themmes run softly till I end my Song') and ends with the Kashmiri-American poet Agha Shahid Ali's 'The Veiled Suite'.

Each poem is introduced with a page or less of text, where Bloom offers a thumbnail sketch of the poet's life and their literary context, and some clues as to how you may approach the poem. Often he relates his personal connection to the poem and, with the more recent writers, the poets themselves. Just shy of 80, Bloom is open about his own motivation for making such an anthology at this point in his career, and writes in his introduction about this:

Myself seventy-nine years of age, I grieve still for many of these poets who were my friends. But knowledge, not pathos, is my purpose in gathering this anthology. Lastness is a part of knowing.

Bloom also discusses the overlap between 'last poems' and 'death poems', and notes the influence upon him of Epicurus and his disciple Lucretius. He traces a heritage of Lucretian poetry in English writing, and describes it thus:

Epicurus and Lucretius had many ambitions, but the largest was to free us from fears of death, which for them in itself was nothing at all. Liberated from heaven and hell, purgatory and limbo, we were to benefit from the demythologizing of death, be it magnified by pagans or by Christians. Dying comes to all, but "death" to no one. What Stevens called "the mythology of modern death" seems to have little force in the twenty-first century, which follows the century of the Holocaust and other unforgivable barbarities. In so bad a time, when nations and regions alike begin to seem organised incoherences, Lucretian poems are refreshing in their difference.

Having never formally studied English Lit, I'm still not sure how to parse Bloom's statement here. As an inexperienced reader, it is interesting how the poems seem to move over the course of five centuries from a shared, even social conception of death to a more private, more inwardly focused one. This may reflect, of course, the role poetry has played over that time: today, reading poetry is largely a private activity, conducted alone behind closed doors, whereas one of the poems Bloom includes, Ben Jonson's 'Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue', from the early 17th century, was written to be sung as part of a play/dance masque.

Reading through the book, I felt most stirred by the works from the early part of the 20th century (although I will spare a special mention for William Morris's 'The Story of Sigurd the Volsung', from which Bloom extracts the revenge song of Gudrun: "There was none to hinder Gudrun, and the fire-blast scathed her nought / For the ways of the Norn she wended, and her feet from the wrack they brought"). And with that, my five favourite poems.

Edward Thomas (1878-1917) 'Liberty'

The last light has gone out of the world, except
This moonlight lying on the grass like frost
Beyond the brink of the tall elm's shadow.
It is as if everything else had slept
Many an age, unforgotten and lost -
The men that were, the things done, long ago,
All I have thought; and but the moon and I
Live yet and here stand idle over a grave
Where all is buried. Both have liberty
To dream what we could do if we were free
To do some thing we had desired long,
The moon and I. There's none less free than who
Does nothing and has nothing else to do,
Being free only for what is not to his mind,
And nothing is to his mind. If every hour
Like this one passing that I have spent among
The wiser others when I have forgot
To wonder whether I was free or not,
Were piled before me, and not lost behind,
And I could take and carry them away
I should be rich; or if 1 had the power
To wipe out every one and not again
Regret, I should be rich to be so poor.
And yet I still am half in love with pain,
With what is imperfect, with both tears and mirth,
With things that have an end, with life and earth,
And this moon that leaves me dark within the door.

Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) 'The Lonely Death'

In the cold I will rise, I will bathe
In waters of ice; myself
Will shiver, and shrive myself,
Alone in the dawn, and anoint
Forehead and feet and hands;
I will shutter the windows from light,
I will place in their sockets the four
Tall candles and set them a-flame
In the grey of the dawn; and myself
Will lay myself straight in my bed,
And draw the sheet under my chin.

Elinor Wylie (1885-1928) 'Ejaculation'**

In this short interval to tear
The living words from dying air,
To pull them to me, quick and brave
As swordfish from a silver wave,
To drag them dripping, cold and salt
To suffocation in this vault
To which the lid of vapour shuts,
To shake them down like hazel-nuts
Or golden acorns from an oak
Whose twigs are flame above the smoke,
To snatch them suddenly from dust
Like apples flavoured with the frost
Of mountain valleys marble-cupped,
To leap to them and interrupt
Their flight that cleaves the atmosphere
As white and arrowy troops of deer
Divide the forest, - make my words
Like feathers torn from living birds!

Stevie Smith (1902-1971) 'Black March'

I have a friend
At the end
Of the world.
His name is a breath

Of fresh air.
He is dressed in
Grey chiffon. At least
I think it is chiffon.
It has a
Peculiar look, like smoke.

It wraps him round
It blows out of place
It conceals him
I have not seen his face.

But I have seen his eyes, they are
As pretty and bright
As raindrops on black twigs
In March, and heard him say:

I am a breath
Of fresh air for you, a change
By and by.

Black March I call him
Because of his eyes
Being like March raindrops
On black twigs.

(Such a pretty time when the sky
Behind black twigs can be seen
Stretched out in one
Uninterrupted
Cambridge blue as cold as snow.)

But this friend
Whatever new names I give him
Is an old friend. He says:

Whatever names you give me
I am
A breath of fresh air,
A change for you.

[**The devil in me is thinking of requesting 'Ejaculation' as a funeral poem, simply for the sake of having the word printed in the order of service]

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been reading Harold Bloom for over 30 years now, ever since I borrowed The Anxiety of Influence from my college library and forgot to return it.

And I enjoy his writing, his vast knowledge, his love of reading, his love of the canon, his appreciation for knowledge and all things that contribute to a better life. I don't always understand some of his Freudian angles toward poetry and poets, but he is still a vast and enjoyable ocean of literature to jump into periodically.

Till I End My Song is about last poems. Not always the final poem written by a poet (in some cases, yes), but poems that look at impending mortality and what lies beyond.

The selection is diverse, but does stay with his mostly favorite canon poets. I recommend this book as much for some of the poems as I do for the introduction he writes for each one. These intros are only a couple of pages long, but give a terrific insight into the life and work of each poet, and why he selected the poems. My favorite selection was a beautiful poem by John Donne, but I enjoyed Bloom's writing as much about each poet.

If you want to learn about poets, this is a good introduction. A last look of poems, but a first look at writers to learn from, and Bloom is one of the best teachers there is.

[Kevin Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Typical Bloom: define parameters for intriguing premise of anthologizing/interpretation and then bend those parameters to the point of basically throwing out the whole premise to just reflect Bloom's personal preferences as a voracious reader. These are NOT "last" poems, but rather poems that reflect on mortality. Even so, seeing such types of poems in a chronological series by some of the English language's greatest poets makes for a great read -- especially if you are gearing up for a birthday or even getting ready to do your last readings. Bloom does have an enviable command of so many different types of authors/poets' oeuvres that he chooses some real gems -- some expected and some unexpected. (His Dickinson choice, for example, is spot-on but could easily have been different, and what a find Robert Hayden's "Bone-Flower Elegy" is!) Some exclusions are clearly a Bloom pronouncement (no Oppen, no Plath) but the old guy does certainly know his romantics, you have to give him that.

[Aedan Lombardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25, some beautiful poems that I’ll probably reread but a lot Bloom’s introductions are bad/crusty. I’d skip them but I know so little about poetry that some context (even if it was hidden in too many words) was useful.

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, I did like all the poems. I found some new poets or unfamiliar pieces from poets I've read before so five stars to the poets. But the criticism and bios for this book keep weighing it down.

This is edited by Harold Bloom, which might be self-explanatory.

Is it a book for lay people? Is it for those making a serious study of the subject? I can't tell. The annotating is hit-and-miss; some poems have a great deal of annotating but some have absolutely no annotating and they need it (particularly those retaining original spelling and punctuation, like Raleigh's "The Ocean to Cynthia" for which I will can't quite decide what "consayte" is meant to be). Bloom's editorial decision-making also leaves a gap. He choose to use three definitions of last: literal "last poems", poems meant to mark the end of a career, or (and this one is the wobbliest category) poems "that seem to [Bloom] an imaginative conclusion to a poetic career". He also made the decision to not represent some poets because he "could not locate in them a distinguished last poem in any of [his] three senses." There are frequent references made to other poets and critics with no other elaboration leading me to believe this is not intended for the lay public, although it seems to be marketed that way. This anthology is also entirely British until the inclusion of Emerson halfway through, largely male, and, with few exceptions, white.

What would I have liked to see in this book? A true collection of last poems, with no subjective "picking and choosing" by the editor, grouped by perhaps situation (poets who died by their own hand, poets who worked through long illness before death, poets who died suddenly), from all areas of the world linked together by commentary about common forms and imagery. In short, more objectivity is needed (and less carping about the rise of cultural studies, etc., in the poets' short biographies).

(I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection. Not necessarily the poet's last written poem, although some are, but the poem most about ending, culmination, or death. Each poem has an introduction by Bloom, explaining his choice and telling a little about the poet. And so I discovered that I do not much care to know about the poet. It's distracting! It doesn't help me get into the meaning of the poem. And apparently poets are troubled souls, suicidal, self-loathing individuals for the most part. Really? Are happy poets so rare?

Anyway - a lot of great poems. Here's one I liked.



The Dragonfly


You are made of almost nothing
But of enough
To be great eyes
And diaphanous double vans;
Unending hunger
Grappling love.

Link between water and air,
Earth repels you.
Light touches you only to shift into irridescence
Upon your body and wings.

Twice-born, predator,
You split into the heat.
Swift beyond calculation or capture
You dart into the shadow
Which consumes you.

You rocket into the day.
But at last, when the wind flattens the grasses,
For you, the design and purpose stop.

And you fall
With the other husks of summer.


Louise Bogan




38)A Hymn to God the Father - John Donne
46)The White Island - Robert Herrick
49)Love - George Herbert
56)Of the Last Verses in the Book - Edmund Waller *
123)Terminus - Emerson *
126)Elegiac Verse - Longfellow
185)To R.B. - G.M. Hopkins
208)The Dark Angel - Lionel Johnson
214)Monsieur Qui Passe - Charlotte Mew *
225)Liberty - Edward Thomas
231)Of Mere Being - Wallace Stevens *
237)Shadows - D.H. Lawrence *
266)The Dragonfly - Luise Bogan *
281)Heart of Autumn - Robert Penn Warren
294)In a Dark Time - Theodore Roethke *
323)Poem on His Birthday - Dylan Thomas
350)The Darkness & the Light Are Both Alike - Anthony Hecht
354)In View of the Fact - A.R. Ammon

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was not what I thought it would be. my assumption was that it would be a collection of the final poems of various poets, whether they knew they were writing their final poem or not, whether the subject was death or not. I didn't really notice that it was edited by harold bloom and I've never really read any harold bloom - I just thought of him as a conservative literary critic. I have a book called japanese death poetry which is more along the lines of what I thought this book would be - although there is a japanese poetic tradition of writing death poems, and although I prefer western poetry to japanese poetry.

bloom explains that there are three kinds of "last poems" he has selected - literal final poems, poems intended to mark the end of life, although the poets continued to live and write, and poems that bloom judged to be "an imaginative conclusion to a poetic career" - which in practice seems to have meant poems that he felt best exemplified the poet's work or major themes. so really very few of these are actually last poems in the sense I expected. in quite a few cases bloom selected poems that were elegies for someone else the poet knew, along the lines of elegies also intimating the writer's own future death.

so last poems, rather than being actual final poems, ends up being just a sort of theme bloom uses to make his own selections. I was also expecting more or less just poems as content, with perhaps brief introductions, but each poet got a page or two of biography and discussion of the selected poem, so it wasn't really like just reading an anthology of poetry.

I went through three phases reading this, the first one being the realization that this was not at all what I expected. since Bloom put the poets in chronologically, this also happened during the earlier poems in the book, in the mid-1500s. not really my favorite time period (the Romantics and contemporary poetry are my preferences). I also found that a lot of these were very abstract philosophical poems. I understand the urge to write poetry like this, but unless it's grounded in a lot of clear metaphor, I don't like it. I don't like it when I write it, and I don't like reading it. the next phase, having accepted the book for what it was, I enjoyed. I would say most of the poems here are unfamiliar to me, even when I knew the poets, and a good many of the poets were unfamiliar as well. I was also much enjoying the little biographies - how everyone tied together (I don't think I ever realized ada lovelace was byron's daughter before), what an absolute scourge tuberculosis was - I don't think that was ever really brought home to me before I read of all the tuberculosis deaths in quick succession in the biographies, not just the poets but their families, friends, and loved ones. bloom, for someone I associate with conservativism (I know he is famed for bemoaning the abandonment of the canon of dead white men for a more inclusive authorship), did not shy away from discussing homosexuality, which comes up a LOT in biographies of poets, whether they tried to escape their own homosexuality or embraced it. he also did include women and speak very admiringly of their work. he is big on emily dickinson.

and then in the third phase, I was growing tired of bloom's (apparently characteristic habit) of identifying poetry through its influences. from what I understand from a little research on him (incidentally, doing an image search on him is fascinating - his photo in the back of the book looks quite upset, and so are 90% of the other photos of him, he is almost always despairing or frowning or the like) he had a talent for discerning threads of a poetic style, diction, tone, thematic concern etc., and I know that I am not well-read enough in poetry to argue with him when he says roethke is "rarely free of ancestral voices (w.b. yeats, t.s. eliot, walt whitman, and wallace stevens) or garrigue is "essentially...a keatsian poet and not a child of t.s. eliot" or "like dylan thomas, he was a High Romantic poet, but far more Wordsworthian and less overly experimental than the far more famous dylan". however, the repetition of this throughout the book grows grating, even because I'm not well-read enough to argue with him or have an opinion on it. when he says dylan thomas gladly accepted the influences of blake, d.h. lawrence, john keats, and shakespeare, I don't know if bloom knows this through biography of thomas and what thomas himself was known to read and admire or if these are influences bloom has traced in thomas' poetry and why he sees them there. nearly every poet is given their list of influences, "wordsworth, keats, gerard manley hopkins", "auden and john crowe ransom", "a disciple [he gives this wording a lot] of ralph waldo emerson and walt whitman", "whitman, emily dickinson, t.s. eliot, and wallace stevens". it just is wearisome after a while and makes you feel that no one has a bone of originality in them.

after tuberculosis subsides, there are a lot of suicides in the biographies. bloom loves hart crane, who gets mentioned more than you think hart crane would otherwise be mentioned. sylvia plath is not included, a rather stunning oversight to my mind considering her book ariel was released two years after she killed herself and therefore fits the theme. I guess bloom didn't like plath. ee cummings is not included, ted hughes is not included, kenneth koch is.

when I am reading these books that I own from my to be read shelf, which this is, it is always with a mind to whether I am going to keep the book or not. I thought at first that I would not keep this, but in the end, I found enough value in the selection of poems and poets, and in the biographical snippets, that I will.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is subtitled "A Gathering of Last Poems" and is focused on the last poems written by poets but Bloom takes liberties about what he considers "last." He wrote this when he was 79, which illuminates where his mind was at, though it turned out he was to live another decade.

So you have to be in the right mindset to read these poems. They're not all grim but they do deal with endings and often the end of life. I don't know that I would normally have picked this book up, both because of the focus of it and because the name Harold Bloom brings "ugh" to mind rather than positive associations. I'm not even sure how I developed this association with Bloom but there it is.

It has taken me years to decide I was ready to pick it up and I wasn't as disappointed as I thought I'd be. Bloom's introductions to each poet/poem are engaging, sometimes reading like micro-memoirs if he knew the poet personally. The selections are chronological and span 500 years. I marked 24 of the 100 poems as ones I particularly liked and would want to return to. I felt prompted to look further into three of the poets featured. That's a pretty good takeaway from an anthology.

Old familiar poems, like Tennyson's Crossing the Bar, are included but the poems selected are often lesser known works of the poets so that was eye-opening as well.

Keats' last poem "This Living Hand" is quite poignant if you know about the long illness that led to his death at the age of 25. Bloom provides the context that "it appears to have been intended for a verse drama never completed."

This living hand, now warm and capable
of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might steam again,
And thou be conscience-calmed--see here it is--
I hold it towards you.


By contrast, here is Elinor Wylie's Ejaculation, also included in this volume:

In this short interval to tear
The living words from dying air,
To pull them to me, quick and brave
As swordfish from a silver wave,
To drag them dripping, cold and salt
To suffocation in this vault
The which a lid of vapour shuts,
To shake them down like hazel-nuts
Or golden acorns from an oak
Whose twigs are flame above the smoke,
To snatch them suddenly from dust
Like apples flavoured with the frost
Of mountain valleys marble-cupped,
To leap to them and interrupt
Their flight that cleaves the atmosphere
As white and arrowy troops of deer
Divide the forest,—make my words
Like feathers torn from living birds!


The title comes from Spenser's Prothalamion, which begins the book. The last poem is a canzone by Agha Shahid Ali, who died in 2001. It was an interesting span of history in terms of craft and attitudes toward death--and the varying precariousness of life throughout those centuries--to cover in the span of 372 pages and 100 poems. I wanted to read this now because I suspected I would decide to let it go, one less book to cart to a new home in the future. Not so. I've decided this one is a keeper.

[Joline Moore · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sheer undertaking of what Mr. Bloom did here is admiral and daunting. The compiled "last" poems of 100 poets spanning 1600s to present. Unfortunately, the poems here are not a good representation of the poets work. They are (almost) all tedious, confusing, terrible and death-centric. I also have never heard of many of these "great poets "... some chosen because they were "dear friends" of the author.
In any case, some of the stories behind the authors' demise were interesting, though worrisome as I too am a poet! It would seem most died young (24-55), committed suicide (most by drowning), were alcoholics or drug addicts, had "homo-erotic tendencies" as the author put it, or died of TB!

[Clara C · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me sooo long to finish this, mostly because I'm not a native english speaker and the first poems took a long time to get through. In any case, it's an amazing read. The variety of authors (although not very diverse) was great for never allowing boredom to set in, not to mention making new acquaintances in the genre, and the different perspectives on the (at first) grim subject were very interesting.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful collection, brilliantly selected. The critical introduction is less dense than Bloom's usual ouevre, and the brief precis' before each poem, while idiosyncratic, are smart and telling.
I think this may be my favorite of Bloom's works - he's searching for a thesis, as usual - but the examples are...exemplary, and his love for them is obvious.
Well done, Professor Bloom.
(Ultimate irony that this notice should be posted on Good Reads, though - serves the old curmudgeon right!

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 2010, this anth0logy is all the more significant for the personal touches added by editor Harold Bloom, who passed away in 2019. Never a man without an intelligent insight, Bloom presents short introductions to each poem and comments on the poets themselves, always pertinent, sometimes even sad. I need to buy this book.

[Ronan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is a cut above the usual themed anthology by the depth of thought behind the selection. Bloom introduces each poet and the poem that he has chosen as their last (often not the last thing they wrote, but their poetic response to the end of things), and his introductions are a splendid companion to the poems themselves.

[Bret · Rating 5 out of 5]

This poignant anthology is sure to haunt the imagination, as is its eloquent commentary. Occasionally one of the included poems is delightfully unexpected. For a taste of its treasury, here’s a bit of Hart Crane’s “The Broken Tower”: “The bells, I say, the bells break down their tower; / And swing I know not where.”

[Cynthia Egbert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this one because I got so frustrated with Mr. Bloom's interpretations and his overbearing and condescending manner. I read only the chapters from poets that I had a real interest in and then returned it to the library.

[Amelia]

I have only read the poems in this book, only randomly a few of the introduction Bloom gave to each one.
And because there are so many different poems from so many different authors in here, I don't rate this book.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Right up my alley, although some of the poems were a bit of a slog. My favorites were Proverb / Kenneth Koch and In View of the Fact / A.R. Ammons, whose poetry I now want to read more of. Impressive notes & research by Bloom; learned there is a movie about Stevie Smith starring Glenda Jackson.

[Jenny Wheelbarrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection of last poems written. Just fun to pick through and in some cases revisit poets I had forgotten about.

[Jacob Villa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a rating for the compilation of poems, not for the commentary. Harold Bloom has great taste but plays in the sludge of the post-moderns.

[Sean]

These stood out to me:
"Who will in fairest book," Philip Sydney
"The Night," Henry Vaughan
"Night on the Prairies," Walt Whitman
"To Dear Daniel," Samuel Greenberg
"Futility," Wilfred Owen

[Joanna Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the short poet bios almost as much as the poetry.

[Charles Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning book! Bloom has that rare quality of being able to write fluently, so that even when flawed he is still worth reading. This book had its occasional flaws (disagreeable moments), but it was still a great read.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bloom, in an elegaic mood, has put together a collection of poems from dead poets--beginning with Spenser and ending with Agha Shahid Ali (1949-1980)---that all have a certain feeling of finality to them; not necessary the last poems the authors wrote, but almost invariably something from near their ends. Both the poems and the fairly long introductory remarks accompanying each make worthwhile reading (he has strong opinions), and the entries can be dipped into or read in any order.

Here are some lines I highlighted (from Bloom if not otherwise noted, from me if in brackets):

American poets keep going down to the shoreline to struggle with their daemons.

...and we hope to learn from the poets not how to die but how to stand against uncertainty. [Cf. Robert Frost's line in his essay "The Figure A Poem Makes": "it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life-not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion."]

Reflecting upon the poems gathered in this volume, I marvel at how many speak silence and wash our dusk with silver.

For the late Amy Clampitt, a poet I knew and revered, at the close a silence opens.

O who will tell me where He found thee at that dead and silent hour! (Henry Vaughan)

There is in God (some say) a deep but dazzling darkness... (Henry Vaughan)

At 79, a decade younger than Landor in this poem, I read it with dark recognition.

Seek out--less often sought than found--A soldier's grave, for thee the best; Then look around, and choose thy ground, / And take thy rest. (Byron)

And much I grieved to think how power & will / In opposition rule our mortal day--and why God made irreconcilable / Good & the means of good... (Shelley)

Well, World, you have kept faith with me, / Kept faith with me; / Upon the whole you have proved to be / Much as you said you were (Thomas Hardy)

As a poet, Stevenson chose to be deliberately minor.

This is for all ill-treated fellows / Unborn and unbegot, / For them to read when they're in trouble / And I am not. (A.E. Housman)

The last light has gone out of the world, except / This moonlight lying on the grass like frost... (Edward Thomas)

Let your last thinks all be thanks. (W.H. Auden)

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent survey for poetry novices, and perfect organization. (Bio and background offered before each poem.)

notes/excerpts:
title from Spenser
Intro: I grieve still for many of these poets who were my friends. But knowledge, NOT PATHOS, is my purpose in gathering this anthology.
35..the Tempest--Prospero is a critique of Marlowe's Dr Faustus
..Prospero has been taken to speak for Shkspr..
We are such stuff
as dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
85..Johnson, in my judgement, remains the canonical literary critic..Sam's idolatry of Pope restrained him from developing his own gift. HOW IMMENSELY VARIED HIS TALENTS WERE!
..His motto: Clear your mind of cant.
87..on the death of Dr Robert Levet
123..Emerson Terminus
contract thy firmament
to compass of a tent
143..Emily B.--Wuth Hts
.....Char B.--Jane Ayre (Lord Byron the orig. Rochester & Heathcliff)
147..Whitman: self-elegiac farewells in L of Grass
155..M Arnold: Growing Old
241..Robinson Jeffers..Carmel 1913, built Stone House overlooking Pacific..."I have been warned"
Time sucks out the juice
A man grows old and INDOLENT
255..Conrad Aiken
Tell me, as I lie down, that I was courageous.
259..Samuel Greenberg notes
The Pathos of G's brief life and impending death is prevented from COMPLAINT or oppressiveness by this poem's directness and dignity.
285..Auden: Always found him an endearing, humane personality.
Lullaby: Much that was best in the man and his work comes together here; moral courage, wit, compassion
--I wish I had more of this admirable temperment.
285-289
351..K Koch: Proverb....transforms mode of elegy into a deceptively light farewell founded on the full realization that life will go on without us.
353..Ammons..In view of the fact

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection of poems. I especially enjoyed discovering poets I hadn't read before (Emily Bronte wrote poetry?! I think I should have known that.). There are surprising choices in here - and surprising exclusions! (Sylvia Plath?) - but I liked reading them, especially those that were new to me, in concert with the others. Bloom's short introductions to the poems typically encapsulate quite well the poet's life and situate the selection within his or her career.

As others have pointed out, they are not all "last poems" in that each selection represents the last known written work of the poet. Some of them are indeed the last known poems, but more often than not, they represent the conclusion of a phase in a poet's work or a poem that Bloom "imagined" to be a good final word for that poet's career. I actually found this to be an interesting premise, and I enjoyed reading why Bloom selected each poem. That said, the subtitle is still misleading.

Additionally, I know I'm not adding anything new to the discussion when I say that a major problem I have with this book is that it is very, very biased toward white, male, (British) poets. There is a terrible paucity of diversity in this book, and it's unfortunate. I also recall thinking that it was skewed toward poets with whom Bloom had a personal relationship, but as I read this in April, and my notes are only on the poems, not on the commentary, I don't know if this is an accurate assessment or not.

[Aldric · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise was promising -- a collection of swan songs? deathbed reflections from some of humanity's greatest poets (from the Western canon, as curated by Harold Bloom)? Yes! That said, it was disappointing read. Part of my disappointment lies in the misleading title -- not all of these were final works, and not all of these were poems. Bloom does qualify his selection in the author's bio and intro to each piece, with something along the lines of "this wasn't actually his last piece, but it talks about death and his fears, so I think it counts." He tried to get at the essence of what a Last Poem should encapsulate or symbolize. The result is lackluster, chiefly due to Bloom's equally unsatisfying was Bloom's cumbersome formula of "short bio of how amazing, original, iconic, celebrated this poet/playwright/author was" + "intro to piece" + "excerpt." It drags on and on, and it fails to engage: poorly executed literary speed-dating. As for content, Bloom does succeed in gathering a healthy selection of works from famous and not-so-famous muses. While I did appreciate the chance to get to know a little about those lesser known writers' lives, for me that alone did not redeem this volume's faults.

[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone loves to hate Harold Bloom. Reading the reviews on this book, that was the theme- poor Harold could do nothing right.

I'm not a Harold Bloom fan or detractor. I guess I'm not nearly educated enough to have a strong opinion one way or the other. Harold Bloom's big book on Shakespeare has been a very useful and accessible starting off point for me and the Bard so I came to this with generally positive feelings.

I thought the book was wonderful. I thought Bloom's personal anecdotes were charming and his continual reflection on his age to be disarmingly familiar. I didn't like every poem and there were very few poets I hadn't heard of but a bunch of the individual poems were new to me. I'm not an old, jaded English major. I'm not a writer or a critic of poetry. I just like reading it. It's very easy to tear something down. Much harder to build anew. This was a fine anthology and very worthy of a beginner's library.

[Nelson Wattie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now an octogenarian, Harold Bloom, who has done much to illuminate the history of English-language poetry, brings together poems that have a sense of finality, conclusion, farewell or, most obviously, mortality and death. It's an impressive collection but rather than read from cover to cover it seems to make more sense to browse. Bloom's introductions to each poem seem, in fact, more cursory and less searching than in his earlier collection, The Best Poems of the English Language, but this book also is a pleasant companion at one's side through a few weeks, reminding one of poems well known and surprising one with poems completely unknown. As in all anthologies, familiar work in a different context can refresh one's reading, and for anyone growing older (who is not?) the context of this collection is a thought-provoking one.

[Eliza · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw it as an introduction to the poetry fandom. The variety and the condensed introductions provided context and the escapade through the ages cemented me as a sucker for Shellyan poetry. I think, if I remember what that was like. Or early 19th C. Still a fangirl for Rosetti, side-eying Dylan Thomas. And who on earth is Roethke and why is everyone meeting him.

I yearn to sneak in one of Bloom's lectures now, because he seems like a man intimately appreciative of poetry. His knowledge is omniscient and the introductions to each poem were personal, like old friends who accompanied his nights.

Very interesting to note that a lot of poetry was inspired by men having existential inner homosexual breakdowns and the pre-rephaelites were basically mad, high socialites who wrote poetry.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in bits over the past year. I enjoyed this compilation -- I thought a gathering of the poems where poets have struggled with their mortality would be interesting and I wasn't wrong. It is also a window through time where one can see how poetry has changed over time.
I don't think this is a volume to be consumed whole, but rather savored as you live and struggle as a human with limits on time here on earth.