Collected Poems: Edited by Frank Bidart and David Gewanter; Introduction by Frank Bidart

Rating:
Summary: One Of The Publishing Events of 2003,
Review: Robert Lowell, one of the latter 20th century's most popular poets, seems to have recently dropped off the radar. This is probably partially due to a critical point of view which has emerged, stating basically that Lowell was a product of his time and has now beem outmoded.

This book should dispel that feeling.

One need only look back on a poem like 'Memories Of West Street And Lepke' from Life Studies to realize that even if, in a hundred years, someone reads this having no idea who Lepke was, the poem could still be enjoyed. It is the poem itself, as Helen Vendler said in a round-about way, which makes the mark.

Despite the hefty price tag on this volume, if you're interested in Lowell, you should own this book. There's things here which simply cannot be found elsewhere: his first, and never again published Land Of Unlikeness, magazine versions of poems later revised in their book forms, poems in manuscript which Lowell never finished. Aside from the poems (which a dogged individual could track down in their book forms with Amazon and Alibris), it's these bonuses which make the volume special, and change that price tag from wow-that's-a-lot to it's-not-such-a-big-deal.

To say that 'if you're a Lowell fan' you should by this book is wrong. I should say, 'if you're a poetry fan'. This was a man who changed poetry forever. And aside from this historical aspect, they are some of the finest poems ever written.

Rating:
Summary: Collected Poems by Lowell
Review: This is an excellent work in belles lettres literature.
The author covers a range of poems from history, nature,
geography, the elements, voyages, portraits and the four
seasons. He writes in a fine English tradition worthy
of serious literary review and critique. Here are samples:
"I took the preacher's text
too much for Gospel truth:
"In the light of your eyes, rejoice and have your wish!"

or

"In the verse coming next he serves another dish;
What are childhood and youth but vanity and vice?"

How about a quotation from the poem "Autumn"!

"Shaking , I listen for the word to fall;
building a scaffold makes no deafer sound.
Each heartbeat knocks my body to the ground,
like a slow battering ram crumbling a wall."

Lowell's poetry is both informative and relaxing. It is recommended for general reading or as collegiate literary
critique.

Rating:
Summary: Lowell All Over Again
Review: This is probably the most important collection published in America since Wallace Stevens's 1954 Collected Poems. Although after the publication of Elizabeth Bishop and James Merrill's collected poems Lowell's position no longer seems as pre-eminent as it once did, no poet of his era more intimately captured the uneasy spirit of the Fifties and Sixties. Ginsberg spoke more directly for the disaffected, but Lowell captured the larger unease of America and made it his own, dominating his age as few poets ever have. His voice is unmistakable. His best poems retain their original vitality, and even his weakest poems remain unique in their flaws. Everyone with the slightest interest in poetry will want to own this book.