Collected Poems 1917 to 1982 [Paperback]

Archibald MacLeish (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 9, 1985

This expanded volume of the distinguished poet's work contains 29 previously uncollected poems, some that had been published, and some found in manuscript after MacLeish's death in 1982. This is the definitive volume produced by a life that filled several careers as writer, teacher, and public servant, but was devoted above all to poetry.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Archibald MacLeish was born in Glencoe, Illinois in 1892. He attended Yale University and served in World War I. Later, he went to Harvard Law School and practiced law in Boston for a few years until he gave it up and moved to Paris with his wife and children to devote all his time to writing poetry. He returned to the United States to research the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and the result, CONQUISTADOR (1932), won him a Pulitzer Prize. From 1920-1939, he was a member of the editorial board of FORTUNE magazine and he served as Librarian of Congress from 1929 to 1944. MacLeish's COLLECTED POEMS (1952) won a Pulitzer Prize and his poetic drama, J.B. based on the Book of Job, was a Broadway success in 1957.

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (December 9, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395395690
• ISBN-13: 978-0395395691
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #951,963 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bring him back!, February 6, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Collected Poems 1917 to 1982 (Paperback)

I say, Bring him back! because MacLeish has pretty well dropped from sight, except for 'Ars Poetica' and 'You, Andrew Marvell.' And it's true that one has to mine this hefty volume pretty carefully for the real treasure. Except for Conquistador (MacLeish's 1932 Pulitzer Prize-winning epic--really, it's a sort of epic lyric--of the Spanish conquest of Mexico), MacLeish's long poems hold very little aesthetic interest, and even Conquistador is marred by its indebtedness to the Ezra Pound of the early Cantos. But at his lyric best, MacLeish is incomparable: 'Eleven,' 'Memorial Rain,' ''Not Marble Nor the Gilded Monuments,'' 'Immortal Autumn,' 'Epistle To Be Left in the Earth,' 'Cook County,' 'Winter Is Another Country,' 'Calypso's Island,' 'What Riddle Asked the Sphinx,' 'The Reef Fisher,' 'The Infinite Reason,' 'Dr. Sigmund Freud Discovers the Sea Shell,' 'Captivity of the Fly,' 'Companions,' 'Mark's Sheep,' 'Rainbow at Evening,' and a generous handful of others drawn from every stage of a very long career. What is more, I cannot understand, in this age of the socially conscious anthology, why the editors of the Heath Anthology of American Literature haven't rediscovered the MacLeish of Frescoes for Mr. Rockefeller's City (especially 'Empire Builders'), 'Lines for Interment,' the often misunderstood 'Invocation to the Social Muse' (a satire whose irony turns back on its speaker), 'Speech to Those Who Say Comrade,' and 'Brave New World' (which is especially relevant today, thanks to the so-called Patriot Act). MacLeish was THE poet of the Lost Generation and later the very first 'Fellow Traveler'--literally! His public and private voices merit hearing.