A review by mattbeatty
Selected Poems by Robinson Jeffers
5.0
This is my first real Robinson Jeffers reading (aside from random class-assigned poems), and is already one of my favorite poets. He called the Big Sur region home, and perhaps that's why he resonates with me, as I have a recently acquired particular love for that stretch of mid-California coastal gorgeousness (helped in part by Jack Kerouac's Big Sur
).
His themes consistently cover nature, the sea, God (both the existence of and a lack thereof), and mankind--its hypocrisies, its created conflicts, war and excess. There is often a hopelessness in his writing, a comeuppance that mankind has long deserved and awaited, and *will* come. He finds solace and innocence in animals and birds--hawks in particular--yet also sees them as manifestations of the strength and will of mother nature.
His poetry rarely rhymes yet is often structured. Some of his poems ring out like small tidbits of thought, and you can almost see that moment where this thought bubbled within him and he jotted it out and formed it and added his sweeping wave of closure that ensures each poem has an injection of significance and timeliness. Even today, almost 50 years after his death, his analogues and critiques of war hit home. He was a watcher, an analyst of man's motivations. He knew what made people tick, and he aimed for those tickers when he wrote. As a poet should.
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Some choice quotes (I love the last one):
"The tides are in our veins ... there is in me / Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye / that watched before there was an ocean." -- "Continent's End"
"I have seen these ways of God: I know of no reason / For fire and change and torture and the old returnings. / He being sufficient might be still. I think they admit no / reason; they are the ways of my love." -- "Apology for Bad Dreams"
"Humanity / is the start of the race; I say / Humanity is the mould to break away from, the crust to / break through, the coal to break into fire, / The atom to be split." -- "Roan Stallion"
"When the ancient wisdom is / folded like a wine-stained cloth and laid up in dark- / ness. / And the old symbols forgotten, in the glory of that your / hawk's dream / Remember that the life of mankind is like the life of a / man, a flutter from darkness to darkness / Across the bright hair of a fire, so much of the ancient / Knowledge will not be annulled." -- "The Torch-Bearers' Race"
"What I see is / the enormous beauty of things, but what I attempt / Is nothing to that. I am helpless toward that." -- "An Artist"
"It is time for us to kiss the earth again, / It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies, / Let the rich life run to the roots again." -- "Return"
"It is easy to know the beauty of inhuman things, sea, / storm and mountain; it is their soul and their / meaning. / Humanity has its lesser beauty, impure and painful; we / have to harden our hearts to bear it." -- "The World's Wonders"
"If God has been good enough to give you a poet / Then listen to him." -- "Let Them Alone"
).His themes consistently cover nature, the sea, God (both the existence of and a lack thereof), and mankind--its hypocrisies, its created conflicts, war and excess. There is often a hopelessness in his writing, a comeuppance that mankind has long deserved and awaited, and *will* come. He finds solace and innocence in animals and birds--hawks in particular--yet also sees them as manifestations of the strength and will of mother nature.
His poetry rarely rhymes yet is often structured. Some of his poems ring out like small tidbits of thought, and you can almost see that moment where this thought bubbled within him and he jotted it out and formed it and added his sweeping wave of closure that ensures each poem has an injection of significance and timeliness. Even today, almost 50 years after his death, his analogues and critiques of war hit home. He was a watcher, an analyst of man's motivations. He knew what made people tick, and he aimed for those tickers when he wrote. As a poet should.
--- ---
Some choice quotes (I love the last one):
"The tides are in our veins ... there is in me / Older and harder than life and more impartial, the eye / that watched before there was an ocean." -- "Continent's End"
"I have seen these ways of God: I know of no reason / For fire and change and torture and the old returnings. / He being sufficient might be still. I think they admit no / reason; they are the ways of my love." -- "Apology for Bad Dreams"
"Humanity / is the start of the race; I say / Humanity is the mould to break away from, the crust to / break through, the coal to break into fire, / The atom to be split." -- "Roan Stallion"
"When the ancient wisdom is / folded like a wine-stained cloth and laid up in dark- / ness. / And the old symbols forgotten, in the glory of that your / hawk's dream / Remember that the life of mankind is like the life of a / man, a flutter from darkness to darkness / Across the bright hair of a fire, so much of the ancient / Knowledge will not be annulled." -- "The Torch-Bearers' Race"
"What I see is / the enormous beauty of things, but what I attempt / Is nothing to that. I am helpless toward that." -- "An Artist"
"It is time for us to kiss the earth again, / It is time to let the leaves rain from the skies, / Let the rich life run to the roots again." -- "Return"
"It is easy to know the beauty of inhuman things, sea, / storm and mountain; it is their soul and their / meaning. / Humanity has its lesser beauty, impure and painful; we / have to harden our hearts to bear it." -- "The World's Wonders"
"If God has been good enough to give you a poet / Then listen to him." -- "Let Them Alone"