The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: Poetry 1903-1920, Prose, and Unpublished Writings, Vol. 4 by Robinson Jeffers, Tim Hunt (Editor)

From the Publisher

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) is not only the greatest poet that California (and indeed the American West) has produced but a major poet of the twentieth century who occupies a prominent place in the tradition of American prophetic poetry.

Jeffers consciously set himself apart from the poetry of his generation—by physical isolation at his home in Carmel, by his unusual poetic form, and by his stance as an “anti-modernist.” Yet his work represents a profound, and profoundly original, artistic response to problems that shaped modernist poetry and that still perplex poets today.

For Jeffers, as for no other important modern American poet, there has never been a collected poems, not even a truly representative selected poems—the current Selected Poetry, first published in 1938, contains no poems from the last three volumes published during Jeffers’s lifetime or from his posthumous volume. Now, for the first time, all of Jeffers’s completed poems, both published and unpublished, are presented in a single, comprehensive, and textually authoritative edition of five volumes.

The present volume is in three parts. “Poetry 1903-1920” consists of some of the poems published while Jeffers was a college student, two early collections (Flagons and Apples and Californians), and a number of poems that were never published or were recently rediscovered. “Introductions, Forewords, and Miscellaneous Prose, 1920-1948” gathers all the major prose works. “Unpublished Poems and Fragments, 1910-1962” is mostly material that Jeffers never published, and apparently never tried to publish. The fifthvolume of commentary will contain various procedural explanations and textual evidence for the texts presented in the edition, as well as transcriptions of working notes for the poems and of alternate and discarded passages. The Collected Poetry is designed by Adrian Wilson.

Booknews

Volume four is part of a five-volume set, one of the few works devoted to the collected poems of this American poet. This volume is in three parts. First, the poems written when Jeffers was a college student; two early collections, and ; and poems never published or recently rediscovered. Second, "Introductions, Forewords, and Miscellaneous Prose, 1920-1948" gathers all of Jeffers's major prose. Finally, "Unpublished Poems and Fragments, 1910-1962" comprises material never published and material Jeffers probably never tried to publish. The next and last volume of the set will contain commentary and transcriptions of alternate and discarded passages and of working notes. These are beautifully-produced volumes. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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