A review by lucasmiller
Selected Poems by Robinson Jeffers
5.0
I bought volume one of A History of Modern Poetry by David Perkins years ago. I have spent time with it at odd stretches. Underlining with a mechanical pencil. I've read the poetry of WWI chapter several times. I don't remember exactly how I came across Robinson Jeffers. I always mixed him up with Hart Crane. I've never made much headway reading Crane. Something sparked things early in 2016, I went back and reread the section on Jeffers, and bought this slim collection used online. I was surprised by how old it was when it arrived. The paper is yellowed around the edges, a hallow. There was a small blank piece of paper folded and slipped between the pages. It's brittle and on the verge of crumbling, but has held together as it's become a bookmark over the last month.
Jeffers hated people, loved nature, and was against the Second World War. He wrote poems in the formal style of Whitman, long lines of free verse, but was deeply doubtful of that mass of democratic humanity Whitman so championed. He's pessimistic, but believed that the world is beautiful, and perhaps it is better for mankind to humble themselves at not being able to see things as they are than to burn it down claiming we understand.
I love his poems from the 1920s. He saw the Republic in grave peril. Literally on the verge of collapsing underneath the weight of corruption, willful ignorance, and the senseless violence it all inspired. He took some solace, and asked his readers to do the same, in the fact that the waves and granite cliffs would stand longer then society or civilization. The end of the world would be a sigh of relief, elevating that which makes human life good to the very fore of existence. Poems that feel needed and shockingly timely in 2016. Recommended.
Jeffers hated people, loved nature, and was against the Second World War. He wrote poems in the formal style of Whitman, long lines of free verse, but was deeply doubtful of that mass of democratic humanity Whitman so championed. He's pessimistic, but believed that the world is beautiful, and perhaps it is better for mankind to humble themselves at not being able to see things as they are than to burn it down claiming we understand.
I love his poems from the 1920s. He saw the Republic in grave peril. Literally on the verge of collapsing underneath the weight of corruption, willful ignorance, and the senseless violence it all inspired. He took some solace, and asked his readers to do the same, in the fact that the waves and granite cliffs would stand longer then society or civilization. The end of the world would be a sigh of relief, elevating that which makes human life good to the very fore of existence. Poems that feel needed and shockingly timely in 2016. Recommended.