| 1960
|
|
Heart's
Needle
PS 3537 N32 H4
|
W.D.
Snodgrass |
Much
iambic sing-song
stuff-- not too appealing from a "real language" point of view.
The book itself is beautiful. The poems are accomplished
and neat but none of them grab too much. "The Heart's
Needle" is a ten-part poem at the end of the book
which seems to document
some sort of separation from his daughter. This confessional
stuff, along with Robert Lowell a few years earlier, signifies a tilt
toward the self-reflexive in the Pulitzer.
|
| 1961
|
|
Times
Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades
PS 3525 A23293 T 5
|
Phyllis
McGinley |
Poetry
in the voice of a suburban mother. Valuable as a record
of perspective through three heavy decades in
America. "Chant of the Optimistic Butcher"
has the title character extolling the virtues of "variety
meats" during wartime rationing ("I've tongue
(a sliver),/ I've shank and shins,/ I've liver aquiver/
with Vitamins"). The introduction is by W.H. Auden--
who definitely wrote the most introductions to
Pulitzer-winners.
|
| 1962
|
|
Poems
PS 3507 U379P6 1961
|
Alan
Dugan |
I
read the first edition of this volume 57 of the Yale
Series of Younger Poets, "which is designed to provide
a medium for the first volumes of promising poets.
Open to men and women under forty who have not previously
had a book of verse published. " It is still going
on now; here's
the rules. Nice book.
|
| 1963
|
|
Pictures
From Breughel
PS 3545 I544 P45
|
William
Carlos Williams |
Published
by New Directions,
which is now a Norton compnay. New Directions was a pivotal publisher
during this time period. They made a lot of Pulitzer-winners
and there is not a ringer in the bunch. This book is incredible.
Finally gets some recognition 40 years after he published
"The
Red Wheelbarrow."This one is the Pulitzer make-up exam.
|
| 1964
|
|
At
the End of the Open Road
PS 3537 I75A9
|
Louis
Simpson |
I
read the first Edition.
Very Rod McKuen
cover and in this case the cover provides good basis
for judgment on the entire book. Lame attempts to decry
bourgeois values.
An example is the entire text of "In The Suburbs": There's
no way out./ you were born to waste your life/
you were born to this middleclass life." The best
book of poetry published in this year was Lunch
Poems by Frank O'Hara,
one of the greatest poets of the American
language. O'Hara was also great because he knew what art was and he
hung out with the Abstrat
Expressionists. Never trust a poet who hangs out with other poets.
|
|
1965
|
|
77
Dream Songs
PS 3503 E744 S4
|
John
Berryman |
One-page
poems numbered 1-77, #66 being dedicated to Mark Van Doren,
making Van Doren a rival to Auden for Most Mentions
in a Pulitzer Winner. From #37: "His malice was a
pimple down his good/
big face, with its sly eyes. I must be sorry/ Mr. Frost
has left" |
| 1966
|
|
Selected
Poems |
Richard
Eberhart |
Another
by New Directions. This guy seems to often come upon dead
animals on nature walks. From "The Groundhog":
In June, amid the golden fields,/ I saw a groundhog
lying dead." Good line from "On A Squirrel": "It
is what man does not know of God/ composes
the visible poem of the world. |
| 1967
|
|
Live
or Die
PS 3537 E915 L5 1967
|
Anne
Sexton |
This book blew me away. The best non-collected poems Pulitzer winner.
The last poem in the book of this 1974 suicide is called "Live"
and is about the birth of puppies by the family dog. I used these lines
from this poem as an epigraph to my 2nd book, Memo
To All Employees. "Today life opened inside me like an egg/
and there inside/ after considerable digging/ I found the answer./ What
a bargain!" Sexton wrote it exactly one year before my birth, on
"February the Last, 1966." |
| 1968
|
|
The
Hard Hours
PS 3538 E28 H3
|
Anthony
Hecht |
Have
not found this book as we go to press.
|
| 1969
|
|
Of
Being Numerous
PS 3529 P54 03
|
George
Oppen |
New
Directions published this book, too. Can't find it, but I will make sure
I do. |
