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The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, Volume 2
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The Collected Poetry - Volume 2
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This volume starts off strong. We start off with untitled drafts. We don't know if the titles these poems generally have were given by REH or by an editor. First up is a Solomon Kane poem, "The Return of Sir Richard Grenville." If you remember from our discussions in Volume 1, am not a poetry connoisseur by any means: I very much prefer poems that tell stories, and this one not only tells a story, but is a ghost story! And involves Solomon Kane. I like this one. Richard Grenville is a historical figure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard...).
"Miser's Gold" is next. I liked this one. Basically about the death that protects a treasure. Again, it tells a story.
"The Sand-Hills' Crest" again tells a story. This time, it is a man waiting for the person who sent him to prison for running a still so he can kill that person. It has parenthetical stanzas about his grandfather and how life was better then. It really works having the dual storylines. I felt it added to the man's angst.
This was a great selection to start this volume.
This section (Untitled Drafts - Introductory Sampling) continues with another Solomon Kane poem, "One Black Stain," with three different drafts. Another story-telling poem, this one involves Francis Drake and the hanging of one of Francis' friends for treason. Kane is pissed by this, but when he realizes that Drake mourns his friend, Kane does not wreak the vengeance he had planned.We also have two versions of "Drowned," which I really liked. It's a short two-stanza poem that touches upon doom and hope, kind of like a beautiful afterlife. This one is also available in A Word from the Outer Dark and Robert E. Howard: Selected Poems, although they only include the first version. I thought this one was rather haunting.
"Little Brown Man of Nippon" is an interesting warning to Japan, a pre-WWII warning that the West would crush it if it tried to expand its empire. It also appeared in a letter (in The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume Two: 1930-1932, page 324) to Tevis Clyde Smith, April 1932, but it is slightly different than the draft presented here.
Still a strong selection of poems for this section.
"The Ballad of Buckshot Roberts" was a splendid telling of Andrew L. "Buckshot" Roberts and his last stand against the Regulators in the Battle of Blazer's Mill. Well done, REH. (also found in Western Tales, The End of the Trail: Western Stories, A Word from the Outer Dark, and Robert E. Howard: Selected Poems).Anyway, I finished the first section. It also included "In the Ring" and "Destiny (1)" which were also good.
Read through "Untitled Drafts: Seeking Adventure and Freedom."I didn't care for these as much, but that may be my general bias toward story-telling in poetry vs just describing a feeling or a scene, and these were very much describing the "adventure-seeking" feeling. "A Dying Pirate Speaks of Treasure" was the best, but even that was a pale poem compared to the the prior section, which was REH's best untitled drafts. I guess that is to be expected.
I started "Untitled Drafts: Fantastical" last night. I didn't finish the section yet, but a couple of poems really stood out at me. "The Symbol" (also available in The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard and Robert E. Howard: Selected Poems) was interesting. It grabbed me and didn't let go for a bit.
"Shadows from Yesterday" (also in Robert E. Howard: Selected Poems) was about past lives, which interested REH. It was a pretty okay poem, but the ending clinched it and made it awesome to me: "For this a Truth as eld as Hell, changeless as cosmic rhyme, / For every sin that we revel in we must make right some time."
The others I read last night (up to page 50) were harder for me to digest or appreciate, being just poetic descriptions of a scene, place, or feeling. Again, not a statement as to their quality (I am singularly unqualified to discuss the quality of a poem), just a statement of my preferences, that I prefer poems that tell stories.
I finished the "Untitled Drafts: Fantastical" section. I really liked "Shadow Thing." Wow. Great little tale encapsulated in that poem.A lot of the poems toward the end of this section were super short. I think brevity and the lack of a narrative structure fail to really suck me into their "reality" and out of mine, so these little snippets of poems don't really work for me.
I didn't read much tonight, but I managed to go through about 30 pages of "Untitled Drafts: Historical and Observational." I enjoyed "The Feud." Good little story about an Old West feud. A man killed another man's son, so the father killed the man and his brother in vengeance. "No Man's Land" was a great rhyming story about WWI trench warfare. "A Rhyme of Salem Town" was an excellent poem/story about a young woman accused of witchcraft because the town busy-body was jealous.
Anyone remember the mini-series "Shaka Zulu"? It aired around 1986. I was 16 years old and I LOVED it. I bought it on VHS a couple of years later, and then on DVD. Now I have it on Blu-Ray. It's a favorite of mine still today. So, I really liked "The Zulu Lord" which features Shaka (spelled Chaka here). It's interesting that REH knew who he was. If it had not been for that mini-series, I'd have no idea.
"The Affair at the Tavern" was another highlight of tonight's reading. Basically one man wanted a woman, and another man wanted her too, so they fought for her and killed each other. Again, it told a story. My bias is showing, but that's the way it is. I like poems that tell stories.
I don't read these near often enough, but I am totally enjoying your recaps, Vincent, so keep 'em coming!
Thank you, Jason! I wonder if my posts get read. I am definitely not an expert on poetry, so I am doing the best I can. Kind of hoping someone who likes the poems I don't will tell me why those poems are great also! Or if someone is like me and prefer the storied poems, say so! Anyway, my goal is to read as much REH as possible, so I tend to try to read new ones (to me) ASAP.My reading tonight started with a good one: "The Chief of the Matabeles." Again, this one features Chaka Zulu, and a betrayal of his trust. This one feels unfinished, but it was a good read.
This was followed by a couple of short poems that didn't really grab me, and then "The Guise of Youth," which was a really cool reincarnation poem.
Sometimes, however, even the short ones have a turn of phrase that just makes me marvel at REH's wordcraft. "How Time along the hours crawls / Like some great sluggish worm of doom" (The Cells of the Coliseum). That line was great. What an image!
This was followed by quite a few reincarnation memory type poems. I kind of like these. I read up to "The Ballad of King Geraint," a poem I know I like (from its appearances in Swords of the North).
Read (for the third time now) "The Ballad of King Geraint," which has to be the bloodiest poem I've ever read. It introduces a dozen protagonists and a dozen antagonists and pits them against each other in a massive battle. Not really historic, but legendary - in that REH "telescoped" history to create a sense of legend. This poem has been analyzed many times (see The Ballad of King Geraint, The Epic-Heroic Tradition, Some Thoughts on a "Missing Shelf" of the REH Bookshelf, and Other Conjectures by Frank Coffman (located at http://www.robert-e-howard.org/SSss03...), for one - and unlike me, Frank Coffman is TOTALLY qualified to analyze poetry).Geraint could be Geraint of Dumnonia, or the legendary Geraint or some other historical amalgamation, but it is an epic tale that really fits into Howard's oeuvre, because it not only describes the iron will of man to stem the tide of racial movement, but it also is filled with the atmosphere of doom for the protagonists in the long run.
One of my favorite scenes is when Uther discovers his foe Anlaf, chops off his head, and rides through the rest of the battle holding the head aloft and laughing with joy.
"The Ballad of King Geraint" can also be found in Swords of the North, Robert E. Howard: Selected Poems, and portions of the poem were also shared in one of REH's letters (Jan. 4, 1930, found in The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume Two: 1930-1932)
This may be my favorite REH poem. If you have it in this volume or in another, you should read it and talk about it!
I finished the "Untitled Drafts: Historical and Observational" section. Of course it contains my favorite poem (see my last post). The ones after that one paled in comparison. Most of them were little poems of the type I don't really get. However, I will say that "Devon Oak" was spectacular. I really liked that one. Maybe the best poem about a tree I've ever read.
Went ahead and read "Untitled Drafts: Humor" since it was only a few poems long. "Another Hymn of Hate" was interesting, basically REH hating on all the magazines that sent him rejections.
"The Phases of Life" actually made me laugh a little despite its brevity.
Read another section this morning, "Untitled Drafts: Naughty." The first one, "Prelude," was basically about someone who found a girl asleep on a bed and proceeded to peek up her night gown. The title makes the poem sound ominous. Prelude to what for this sleeping girl? The poem doesn't tell us whether he is supposed to be there, whether he is a lover or an intruder.
I liked "Desire." Very sensual.
"Good Mistress Brown" showcases REH's predilection for S&M naughtiness. A woman bares her bottom in church to show the spanking marks there. Naughty humor.
"The Harlot" is about a prostitute being pantsed by a pious lady.
"Perspective" was my favorite of this batch despite its brevity. Basically that there are two kinds of people: Those who kiss Life on the hand respectfully, and those who are a little more aggressive toward life, shall we say. LOL.
you have sold me on finding and reading "The Ballad of King Geraint"! I do not have any of the books that it is in, though I have been interested in SWORDS OF THE NORTH, so I'll make that a priority.
Fantastic! If you can't find "Swords of the North" (It's sold out on the REH Foundation website), you can get "Selected Poetry" on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Howard-...
The poems were selected by Frank Coffman, who, as I said, is very qualified to analyze poetry and choose the very best REH has to offer.
Finished "Untitled Drafts: Darker Moods." These were largely not to my taste. The first one, "Mine But to Serve," was okay. I liked the dialogue approach to the poem. Basically it was about a woman having a dark mood and needed to be comforted by a stoic man. The poem states that even the strong silent type also have black moods ("Unspeaking still, I stroked her wavy hair./ Ah, child, how little you and others know/ The hidden hells of they who never speak.")
"The Champ" gave a dark little twist at the end, basically how even champions fall.
Mostly these poems were of the type that I disfavor - describing feelings with lyrical descriptions of things to create an atmosphere for that feeling. Most were also short.
As I said before, this isn't to knock the quality of the poems (I am not qualified for that), just that these didn't grab me or possibly were not really understood well by me.
My hope is that someone who really likes the poems I don't will get on here someday and explain why some of these other ones are truly great. I remember that I never really liked Breckinridge or Costigan humor stories - until I read Blood and Thunder: The Life and Art of Robert E. Howard by Mark Finn. Mark Finn had a wonderful section describing the context of those stories and exactly why they were wonderful. That opened my eyes, and now I LOVE those stories! I get them in a way I never had before!
My hope is for that to happen with some of the less accessible (to me) poems by REH.
Started on "No Known Drafts: Introductory Sampling." These are poems that are known only from either published versions or Glenn Lord's retyping. We have no way of knowing if any of these have been edited prior to publication as there are no draft versions.It starts off strong with "Solomon Kane's Homecoming." I like this poem. It gives a good sense of the history of Solomon Kane. It mentions Sir Richard Grenville, and someone named Bess. Some assume it a lover or wife of S.K. Philip Jose Farmer posits that Bess is his daughter. We have no way of knowing as there are no stories with Solomon Kane and Bess.
There is a paragraph basically describing "The Moon of Skulls" and then another about "Hills of the Dead."
"Black Harps in the Hills" I didn't care for. It felt like a bunch of lists of names. This is a poem that could really use annotations. I didn't like the poem well enough to look everyone up, but if there were annotations, I might have gotten more out of the poem.
"Two Men" was a poem about Jesus Christ. That surprised me.
I liked "The Tale the Dead Slaver Told." Nice horror poem. Same with "Not Only in Death They Die." I really liked that one.
Read the "No Known Drafts: Seeking Adventure and Freedom" section. "Viking's Vision" had some lines I really liked, such as "Deathward we were sailing, and Aslaf gripped the railing,/ A hungry dagger at his hip, a hate upon his brows" and "A weird is come upon me; the hand of Fate is on me." I liked this one, but at the same time it felt like the prologue to a longer, epic poem. I wasn't finished with the poem, although the poem was finished. (This one is also available in Swords of the North)
I didn't quite get "Earth-Born." I guess the last stanza ties it all together and gives it its ultimate meaning, but until I hit that last line, I was wondering "WTF is this saying?" Once I had the last line, I re-read it and it made more sense. I guess I want the poem to make sense all the way through on the first read - or maybe I just am not astute enough with poetry to have got the gist before the last line drove it home. (This one is also available in A Word from the Outer Dark)
"The Outgoing of Sigurd the Jerusalem-Farer" was OK. I liked the last bit, "I could not hide in the feasting-hall/ Where the great fires light the rooms - / For the winds are walking the night for me / And I must follow where gaunt lands be, / Seeking, beyond some nameless sea / The dooms beyond the dooms." (This one is available in lots of places, such as A Word from the Outer Dark, Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures, and Swords of the North).
"To a Friend" is pretty darn gory and chilling for a poem with that title! LOL (This one is also in Swords of the North)
"Drake Sings of Yesterday" is a ghost story, a ghost who yearns for his past life. It was ok. (Also available in A Word from the Outer Dark)
"Untamed Avatars" was another one I didn't really get. I wasn't sure if I was reading about a pack of wolves, or a group of people, or a shiver of sharks. The end revealed it, but I still really didn't care for this one.
All of these poems are also in Robert E. Howard: Selected Poems.
Read the section called, "No Known Drafts: Fantastical.""The Song of the Gallows Tree" was interesting.
"A Dull Sound as of Knocking" was chilling! I liked this one.
"The Dweller in Dark Valley" felt REALLY familiar to me. Yes, it is also in The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard and a few other collections, but for some reason I recalling Conan... and then it hit me. Marvel's Conan the Barbarian #45, "The Last Ballad of Laza-Lanti" by Roy Thomas was based on this poem! That issue is also in The Chronicles of Conan, Volume 7: The Dweller in the Pool and Other Stories. I honestly think Roy Thomas was among the best (if not THE best) at adapting REH's non-Conan work into Conan stories.
Next up was another Zukala poem. You might recall from a few posts up that I am a big fan of the Zukala poems, so I was happy to have another one to read. This one is "Zukala's Love Song," which has the winged entity Zukala sweeping to Earth to find an adoring love, but his chosen doesn't love him back, so he takes his monstrous form and kidnaps her. I liked this one, but it plays to my biases - it's definitely fantasy and it's a story.
"A Song of the Werewolf Folk" would seem right up my alley, but I didn't care for it. It basically just described what it felt like to be a werewolf, I think, and I don't always know how to appreciate poems that describe feelings. I prefer an outright story.
"But the Hills Were Ancient Then" was another one I don't really get. I think it is about the history of a place, but I am not really sure. Again, this one doesn't really play to my taste. I also am not sure why it is in the "Fantastical" category. It felt more like it belonged in "Historical and Observational," since it was basically a description of a land during a period of time.
"The Palace of Bast", although mostly a descriptive poem of Bast's environment at that moment, was atmospheric enough that it grabbed me, and I could picture it. I kind of liked this one.
"Memories (I)" was interesting. It was about a conqueror revisiting one of his conquests, a defeated city that now lay in ruin because of him.
There were a few other poems, but I mostly didn't get them. I am sure they are fine poems, just not to my taste.
Just letting you know I am reading your posts Vincent. :)
Thank you, Michael. I appreciate that! Today I read "No Known Drafts: Historical and Observational."
These largely were not really to my taste, or were too short. Most of them were just descriptions of moments, of scenes, of feelings.
Atmospheric to be sure, but not the story poems I prefer.
Many of these really needed annotations. Like, "The Legacy of Tubal-Cain," which is about a descendant of Cain who was the first blacksmith (Genesis 4:22), which I felt was rather obscure.
I did like "These Things Are Gods." That one really worked for me.
I also read "No Known Drafts: Humor," The first one in this section, "The Weakling" was pretty good. A guy dies and goes to Hell, but his wasted and ill-spent life wasn't vile enough for Satan, so he kicked the guy out.
I also read "No Known Drafts: Naughty." These weren't bad at all, but not really his best, either. "The Myth" was about the idea that Heaven doesn't have sex. REH believes that to be a myth, because Heaven could not be a joyful place without sex. I did like the line, "For when ye steal the sex, ye steal the joy."
"Ecstasy" and "A Roman Lady" (the latter just a shorter rewrite of the former) were both pretty good, about an insatiable woman.
Reading "No Known Drafts: Darker Moods" tonight.This section starts off STRONG with "Which Will Scarcely Be Understood." I first encountered this poem in Zebra's The Second Book of Robert E. Howard and it hooked me from the first line, "Small poets sing of little, foolish things..." which to me, summed up most of the poetry I had been exposed to in school. I like this poem, despite it not being a story. It rams home to me with a lot of, in my opinion, truth. Definitely a top 10 poem for me (not just REH, but all poems and poets). Whenever anyone expressed doubts that REH wrote poetry, this is the one I'd show them. It's in a lot of collections so I am not going to list them all here. This is probably my number 2 favorite REH poem. Odds are, if you are reading this page, you have a copy of this poem somewhere. If you want to see if you have it, just go here: http://howardworks.com/versew.html#WH...
I think when I am done with the third volume, I'm going to attempt a top 10 list of his poems for me.
"A Sonnet of Good Cheer" I also like. It's dark, but it appeals for some reason.
Oh! Oh! "To Moderns" sounds like a sequel to "Which Will Scarcely Be Understood." It has lines like "Little poets, little poets, / Your star is growing dim" and "Oh, you that sit in the rhymer's seat/ and prattle of little things." I liked this one, too.
I'm not normally enamored of his "Darker Moods" poems, but I really like a few of these.
"Echoes from an Anvil" also grabbed me. It's neat how REH took the role of the smaller folk, the builders and workers, and not the kings so often in his poems. His next few build on this theme, "The Lies," "Longfellow Revised," and "To Certain Orthodox Brethren."
And, "The Rulers." Not to get all political, but honestly all voters should read this and appreciate it. No matter which side of the fence you fall on, according to REH it's all bunk. I liked it.
I didn't cover all the poems in this section, but this was one of the best "Darker Moods" section I've read in the two books so far.
Moving on to the next large section, "Youthful Writings."First up is "Youthful Writings: Introductory Sampling" which has two poems: a boxing poem and a poem about a man driven from his country. They were okay.
Next is "Youthful Writings: Seeking Adventure and Freedom." Three poems about El Borak's friends: Lal Singh & Yar Ali Khan (also in The Early Adventures of El Borak). The best (for me) was "Senor Zorro," which was a pretty good poem about Zorro.
These are obviously not as polished as his later poems, but we all have to start somewhere... and even his worst poem as a youth is better than any I might try to write.
Read "Youthful Writings: Fantastical.""Modest Bill" was my favorite out of these, but it was unfortunately unfinished (well, missing the last page... maybe it was finished, but we'll not see the finish).
I thought it was a hoot.
Read "Youthful Writings: Historical and Observational." Despite the (what I assume is an) ethnic slur in the first line, I liked "Private Magrath of the AEF." Set during WWI, it involves trench warfare and the meeting of a German and the American named in the title.
Although not a story, and just a description of a land, I did like "Zulu-Land."
By far my favorite of this section was "Eric of Norway." Now, this one told a tale! A bloody fight between two Vikings and their fleets. "They boarded one of Eric's long serpents, to slay and burn and wreck; / Ten vikings closed on Hasting, he left them dead on the deck." Some of the rhymes felt a little too modern (this was young REH), but overall, I felt it quite good and enjoyable. I wonder why it wasn't included in "Swords of the North"? Seems like it would have fit there really well.
Went ahead and read "Youthful Writings: Humor."These were okay, but nothing great. Usually I get into his humor, but maybe my mood is off today. idk.
Since I was so close to the end, I finished it out with "Youthful Writings: Darker Moods." I liked "Mankind" the best out of the three offerings in this section, but I don't really have a lot to say.
The rest of the book is just notes and indexes of various sorts.
Overall Thoughts:I thought this was an excellent volume of poetry. Several of the poems here are exemplary.
I found the poems organized as "fantastical" and "historical and observational" poems to be mostly to my tastes, but occasionally one in the other sections would rise to the fore as something I really liked.
I am not really knowledgeable about poetry, so I feel very unqualified to comment on the quality of the poems in and of themselves, and merely able to comment on whether I liked them or not, which says more about me, my tastes, and my biases than they do of REH.
I like the way the book is organized by Paul Herman. He had a massive task to do and he did it well. However, I have to say I would have liked some annotations, even if just for historical figures... and I especially would have liked it if he would have stated where the poems were first published, especially with the No Drafts sections. But, since that would have probably delayed the book even more than I feel it already was (I have been waiting for YEARS for these books), I guess the absence of the annotations is a fair price to pay.
All in all, I am glad I have this, and found it a worthy and interesting purchase. I'm glad to have it in my library, and it was worth the wait.
Here ends my journey through this volume. I hope when others read it, they join me here and post their thoughts as they undertake their journey.
Robert E. Howard Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
The Early Adventures of El Borak (other topics)The Second Book of Robert E. Howard (other topics)
The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard (other topics)
The Chronicles of Conan, Volume 7: The Dweller in the Pool and Other Stories (other topics)
Robert E. Howard: Selected Poems (other topics)
More...
I've been waiting for these volumes for YEARS. I've kicked myself that I didn't discover the REH Foundation soon enough to get a copy of The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard - or maybe I didn't realize how limited it was. I have most of their other hardcover volumes (I'm missing A Rhyme of Salem Town, and Other Poems and The Wordbook as well).
Regardless, I am so happy to have these now! Will start to read the poems in The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, Volume 2 tomorrow and will start the discussions. No need to wait for me if you have the book or just want to discuss REH's poems! And of course, if you end up reading this volume even years from now, please add your thoughts!