Collected Poems [Paperback]

Lynda Hull (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2006 | ISBN-10: 1555974570 | ISBN-13: 978-1555974572 | Edition: First Edition

The definitive collection of the poems of Lynda Hull, "perhaps the most intensely lyrical poet of her generation." (Mark Doty)


If each of us
contains, within, humankind's totality, each possibility
then I have been so fractured, so multiple & dazzling . . .
--from "The Window"

Lynda Hull's Collected Poems brings together her three collections--long unavailable--with a new introduction by Yusef Komunyakaa, and allows, for the first time, the full scale of her achievement to be seen. Edited with Hull's husband, David Wojahn, this book contains all the poems Hull published in her lifetime, before her untimely death in 1994.

Collected Poems is the first book in the Graywolf Poetry Re/View Series, which brings essential books of contemporary American poetry back into print. Each volume--chosen by series editor Mark Doty--is introduced by a poet who brings to the work a passionate admiration. The Graywolf Poetry Re/View Series brings all-but-lost masterworks of recent American poetry into the hands of a new generation of readers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. By the time of her 1994 death, Hull, then 40, had already inspired a sect of admirers; her third and best book, the posthumous The Only World (1995), made sure the admiration would last. A teen runaway from Newark who struggled with heroin during the 1970s, Hull tried to mix the late-Romantic fire of Hart Crane, realist detail and the seductiveness of jazz. Hull painted her natal city as "just one big hockshop" with its grilled storefronts amid "intangible empires of fear and regret, sudden/ crests of tenderness," while a tribute to doomed trumpeter Chet Baker asked, "Why court the brink & then step back?" Hull's earlier verse examines her parents' troubled lives and their East European immigrant heritage; later, wilder, better poems confront her own rough past, a "dizzy trip through the ripped underside of things." The seven-part "Suite for Emily" remembers a girl Hull knew, now dead from AIDS, on Newark's "carnivorous streets," contrasting the friend of her youth to Emily Dickinson; a Prague verse travelogue offers praise "for/ everything damned, for everything human & lovely." Hull may not have discovered a whole new style, but her passion, and her power to depict emotional extremes, justifies the high regard in which she is held. (Nov.)
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Review

"Measured experience informs these poems, as Lynda Hull's voice comes alive again and again, line to line and image to image . . . We will miss her greatly." --Yusef Komunyakaa

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Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press; First Edition edition (October 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555974570
• ISBN-13: 978-1555974572
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #507,878 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gift to the reader from an amazing poet, August 16, 2007

By 

R. A. McCranie (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Collected Poems (Paperback)

I had the honor of being a student of Lynda's in 1992 while attending Vermont College. I'm thrilled to see her poetry being published in this collection. She was a gifted teacher who never expected more or less of her students than she expected of herself. I'll always be thankful for her encouragement, her realism, and her vibrant, beautiful words.
Bob McCranie, MFA
Editor
Red River Review

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Showcases the collected verse of Lynda Hull, February 2, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collected Poems (Paperback)

Graywolf Press has an established and respected reputation for publishing consistently impressive poets. Their latest title showcases the collected verse of Lynda Hull (author of 'Ghost Money', 'Star Ledger', 'The Only World', and who was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry). This definitive collection of the poetry of Lynda Hull is part of the 'Graywolf Poetry Re/View Series' and serves to introduce a whole new generation of readers to the indelible and memorable verse of Lynda Hull (1954-1994) and constitutes a fitting memorial to a truly gifted poet. 'At Thirty': Whole years I knew only nights: Automats/& damp streets, the Lower East Side steep//with narrow rooms where sleepers turn beneath/alien skies. I ran when doorways spoke//rife with smoke & zippers. But it was only the heart's/racketing flywheel stuttering I want, I want//until exhaustion, until I was a guest in the yoke/of my body by the last margin of land where the river//mingles with the sea & far off daylight whitens,/a rending & yielding I must kneel before, as//barges loose glittering mineral freight/& behind me facades gleam with pigeons//folding iridescent wings. Their voices echo/in my voice naming what is lost, what remains.