Robert E. Howard Readers discussion
This topic is about
The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, Volume 3
Howard the Poet
>
The Collected Poetry - Volume 3
date
newest »
newest »
Read "Poetry for Friends: Introductory Sampling." Once again, the volume starts out strong... with "Cimmeria," no less. Probably this poem needs no introduction among you lot, even the ones less familiar with his poems. "Cimmeria" is simply one of his more reprinted poems. I like this poem. I find it fascinating, and he describes it so well, I feel like I could recognize the place if I wandered into it."Altars and Jesters" is next, which describes a nightmarish descent into some kind of ruin or temple, an unfortunate fight with a demon, and all kinds of happenings and descriptions. This was a fun one. It started out as a story but then kind went off and described a nightmare or something. I don't know, but I do know I rather liked it. It was followed with a much more juvenile draft of a part of the poem (which I also liked, because I like naughty stuff; I may be 52 but sometimes REH's naughtier stuff brings out the 12 year old boy still buried within me.)
"A Warning to Orthodoxy" I didn't quite get. Is REH taking the role of an animal? What is going on? I loved the last stanza, though: "I have never known your shackle and chain; / Your lusts have never bound me / And I die on a heap of your gory slain / With the wind and the sky around me."
"The Adventurer's Mistress (2)" was incredible. A man describes his adventurous life as a dance with death, who is a female skeletal figure. It was creepy and full of wonderful imagery.
"Shadows of Dreams" I didn't really care for. It lost me continually while I read it, to the point that even though I finished it right before I started typing this post, I can't remember what it was about at all. Not even sure if I knew what it was about while I was reading it. Poems like this is why I don't read a lot of poetry. Mostly poems like this make me just scratch my head and feel a little stupid because I couldn't follow it or make heads or tails of it.
Read "Poetry for Friends: Seeking Adventure and Freedom." I didn't really care for these. Mostly just descriptions of scenes or feelings, which just aren't my forte when it comes to poetry.
"Crusade" and "The Last Two to Die" had the same problem the first two Transformers live action movies had: The camera was too close to the action, all I could see was spinning parts and couldn't actually follow the action, or who was who. I felt that way with those two poems. They described a combat scene, but I had no idea what was going on.
The best one in this section was "A Haunting Cadence," but it didn't really have a lot of competition, and it doesn't stand up to some of the poems I REALLY liked. But it is noticeable because REH put himself in the character of a Black warrior for the second half. It's a poem of past lives, and I like those.
Read "Poetry for Friends: Fantastical."Some of these were OK. Others less interesting for me.
I liked "The Mysteries." I also liked "The Call of Pan."
"The Haunted Tower" had a great, evil twist at the end.
"Whispers on the Nightwinds" had a first stanza that reminded me of King Kull. It mentioned where Silence falls, a golden skull, and Atlantean halls. The last two stanzas less so.
"The Chant Demoniac" gave us Satan's point of view of things, begging us to stop sinning so he could rest.
"A Far Country," while not a favorite by any means, had a pattern and scheme I really liked that made it fun to read, and the line "A jester in motley held revel with spectres." I really liked that.
The next section is REALLY long, so I may handle it in parts. I don't know if I have it in me to read that many poems in a sitting.
Read “Poetry for Friends: Historical and Observational.” WAY too many poems for me to talk about them all, so I‘ll mention a few that stood out, either positively or negatively.A lot of these weren’t all that great for me, but I did enjoy “The Viking of the Sky,” which was about WW1 airplane combat.
“Serpent” was pretty enjoyable. It’s about the symbolism of the snake and various mythological snakes.
“Cowboy” was short, but it made a quick point and made me laugh.
“Nisapur” is one of those that made me wish for annotations. Who is Rustum, whose sword broke the genii? I am thinking it is Rostam, a Persian legendary figure, but he died at the hand of his envious half-brother Shaghad, not by the Golden Horde. Or did he mean Rustam I, a real-life ruler in northern Iran? He also didn’t die by the Golden Horde. It’s in the “historical and observational” section, so should I assume it’s the historical figure, or is it in this section because Nisapur was a historical place? There are several historical Bayezids also…
“The Deed Beyond the Deed,” well, I hate poems written in some kind of dialect. It quickly becomes nonsense to me.
“Eternity” was great! It’s not normally a poem I’d like, I guess, but this one had a neat cadence and had neat thoughts in it.
“The Follower” struck near and dear to me. I have a PhD in Management with a specialty in Leadership, and the concept of followership is vital to leadership – and REH nails the concept perfectly. This actually would have made a wonderful preface to my dissertation had I known of it!
“Hard Choices” was GREAT! Wonderful little story about two friends marooned on an island with an opportunity for one of them to escape.
Oft-reprinted, “When You Were a Set-Up and I Was a Ham” is still a delight to read. I think I first encountered that in Boxing Stories by Bison Books. Several of the poems in this section were about boxing or famous boxers (like John L. Sullivan).
It also includes REH’s first sonnet (or so he claimed to Tevis Clyde Smith), “Twilight Upon Stonehenge.” That was a bit of annotation that I wish there were more of, but I’ll take what I can get!
I also liked “The King and the Mallet”… ominous.
Reading "Poetry for Friends: Humor." Like the last section, this one is long, so I'll just comment on some poems that stuck out, for good or ill."A Weird Ballad," mentions werewolves and vampires... and Jules de Grandin! I have a five volume set from the Sci-Fi book club of Jules de Grandin stories by Seabury Quinn. They were published in Weird Tales, I just didn't expect REH to mention the character! Thought that was kind of cool.
"Dancing at Goldstein's" mentions that the couplets are distributed throughout the letter, but why not add which letter it was? I know I can look it up, but still (it's to Tevis Clyde Smith, Dec. 1928, available on page 276 of the first edition of The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume One: 1923-1929 if you are wondering). Also interesting for its mention of Solomon Kane.
I kind of enjoyed the irreverence of "Flappers."
"There was an old dick whose name was Stiff / His head was as hard as a granite cliff." LOL! If that wasn't intended as a double entendre, well... (from "Hatrack!")
Not the best bunch of poems, but the vast majority of them were, as the section title says, written just for his friends, often in the context of his letters. For the most part, I enjoyed this sojourn into the funnier side of REH.
Read "Poetry for Friends: Naughty""A Young Wife's Tale" was really surprisingly hot. I usually expect this section to be a bit juvenile, but... damn. I liked this one a lot. Great lesbian poem.
"At the Inn of the Gory Dagger" was about a man with a 19-inch penis who gets wore down by a woman. She outlasts him.
"Adam's Loins Were Mountains" was about Adam and Eve having some incredible sex.
"Nancy Hawk - A Legend of Virginity" was pretty good. About a girl who lost her virginity after a challenge.
The next section, "Darker Moods" is over a 120 pages, so I may do it in parts.
The "naughty" poetry was never published during Howard's lifetime, and much of it was written in his letters to Tevis Clyde Smith - folks with the Collected Letters will recognize it.
Yep, I read them there first, but I'm giving them a more focused and mindful reading this time. I mentioned in the opening post that anyone who wants to discuss these with me can find them in the Collected Letters if they don't have this particular poetry book.Bobby, do you have a favorite REH poem?
I don't know if I have an absolute favorite. "Solomon Kane's Homecoming," "Cimmeria," and "Kid Lavigne is Dead." For his shorter verse, I always enjoyed:NUN
I have anchored my ship to a quiet port;
A land that is holy and blest.
But I gaze through my bars at the tempest’s sport
And I long for the sea’s unrest.
Those first three are classic and great. "Nun" is in this volume. I didn't quite get why he named it "Nun." It sounds like a sea-farer's lament, but maybe he was talking less literally - the quiet port was a nunnery and she misses her more chaotic life from before. Do you have any thoughts on the title?
It's an extended metaphor for a cloistered nun gazing out the window.
Starting "Poetry for Friends: Darker Moods." This is a long section, so I'll post on it in pieces, and just comment on poems that stood out for me."A Man," which was brought up to this group before, by Jason M, who likened it to "Ozymandias." I still like how the first two lines are like dipping a quill into ink, but larger. (see https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...)
"Bad Choices" (previously known as "Untitled ("Drawers that a girl strips down her thighs")") made me laugh. That one was funny.
I rather enjoyed "The Ballad of Abe Slickenmore," a man who insists that people who have sex in bawdy houses will come to some unfortunate consequences, so he'll have sex with college chicks instead.
"Blasphemy" was great for a short poem, arguing that simply disagreeing with some people is enough for them to say you are blaspheming. REH insists that disagreement isn't to say anything bad about their belief, just that he disagrees.
"The Cuckoo's Revenge" also made me laugh. Basically a girl turned him down, so he's going to bite her panties so hard he'll leave permanent teeth marks on her that she'll have to explain to a future husband.
"Destiny?" ... Wow. Truly a "Dark Moods" poem. Dang. Basically, he is addressing a pretty girl and saying, "Well, sure, you're pretty, but underneath all that? You are just a horrifying skull."
"Dreaming in Israel," REH is not kind to the Biblical Samuel.
More later on this section.
REH had unusual ideas about King Samuel, as expressed in his letters. These ideas probably helped inspire King Kull, especially in "By This Axe I Rule!"
Oh, that is interesting. It's been a long time since I've read his letters, but I like the idea about the Kull link. I'm going to make a note about that the next time I read Kull. And look up those letters (thank goodness you published an index!)
Meant King Saul, Samuel was the priest. Anyway, the relevant quote:I have always felt a deep interest in Israel in connection with Saul. Poor devil! A pitiful and heroic figure, set up as a figurehead because of his height and the spread of his shoulders, and evincing an expected desire of be king in more than name—a plain, straight-forward man, unversed in guile and subtlety, flanked and harassed by scheming priests, beleaguered by savage and powerful enemies, handicapped by a people too wary and backward in war—what wonder that he went mad toward the end? He was not fitted to cope with the mysteries of king-craft, and he had too much proud independence to dance a puppet on the string of the high priest—there he sealed his own doom. When he thwarted the snaky Samuel, he should have followed it up by cutting that crafty gentleman’s throat—but he dared not. The hounds of Life snapped ever at Saul’s heels; a streak of softness made him human but made him less a king. He dared too much, and having dared too much, he dared not enough. He was too intelligent to submit to Samuel’s dominance, but not intelligent enough to realize that submission was his only course unless he chose to take the ruthless course and fling the high priest to the vultures and jackals. Samuel had him in a stranglehold; not only did the high priest have the people behind him, but he played on Saul’s own fears and superstitions and in the end, ruined him and drove him to madness, defeat and death. The king found himself faced by opposition he could not beat down with his great sword—foes that he could not grasp with his hands. Life became a grappling with shadows, a plunging at blind, invisible bars. He saw the hissing head of the serpent beneath each mask of courtier, priest, concubine and general. They squirmed, venom-ladened beneath his feet, plotting his downfall; and he towered above them, yet must perforce bend an ear close to the dust, striving to translate their hisses. But for Samuel, vindictive, selfish and blindly shrewd as most priests are, Saul had risen to his full statue—as it was, he was a giant chained.
—Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, c. Feb 1931, MF 1.160-161
Bobby, you rock! Thank you for putting the quote here for continued discussion!Yes, that ties with the poem really well (again, an annotated version of these poems would really be something to hope for in the future). His poem definitely showcases his connection with Saul - and how he considered Samuel a villain.
And, yes, I can see how "By This Axe I Rule!" could have germinated from this!
Continuing on with "Poetry for Friends: Darker Moods.""John Brown." This is about the abolitionist leader known for the raid at Harper's Ferry. As the poem says, he was hung for inciting that rebellion.
"John Kelley" was easier to look up. He was the prosecutor in the Massie trial. Again, some annotations would have been nice.
"Let Me Live as I was Born to Live" was quite fun just because of the crazy nonsense, like searching for whales in the Sahara and diving to the bottom of the ocean to look for camels. But, aside from that, it does speak toward the general insanity of humanity and the crazy stuff that cultures and people do.
I rather liked "The Robes of the Righteous," which was about a female counsellor or teacher reminiscing about her days as a whore, wondering what all the people who revere her now and seek her counsel would think if they knew her past.
"A Song for Men that Laugh" was interesting, in which REH postulates that he'd rather live in Hell than in a sexless and prudish Heaven.
"A Song from an Ebony Heart" is a favorite from this section. I enjoyed that one a lot.
Finished with "Poetry for Friends: Darker Moods." It ended with a play from one of his letters - it contained a lot of poetry, and having the play surround them added to the context, so that was nice.
Okay, this book is finished. Not a bad collection of poems. Written for his friends and not really for publication, they show a side of REH we don't usually get to see. And I wonder if he would have wanted us to see it - instead of a curated view of REH, these poems show us what he showed his closest friends. Many of the poems were crude and others were sexual.The book itself is gorgeous. It is my favorite of the three volumes of "The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard."
Robert E. Howard Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume One: 1923-1929 (other topics)Boxing Stories (other topics)
The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard (other topics)
A Rhyme of Salem Town, and Other Poems (other topics)
The Collected Poetry of Robert E. Howard, Volume 3 (other topics)
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 3 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!
Most (but not all) of these poems were collected in his letters, and can also be found there. If you have the three volumes of Collected Letters, you can find the ones I choose to talk about if you want to join in, even if you don't have this particular volume.
Also, just a side note, I LOVE the cover to this book.