The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees (Third Edition) [Paperback]

Weldon Kees (Author), Donald Justice (Editor), David Wojahn (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2003

The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees showcases the dark brilliance and absorbing vision of one of America’s most fascinating artistic and literary figures, Weldon Kees (1914–55).

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Kees was both a gifted lyric poet and a restless experimenter, whose diverse background as an abstract expressionist painter, a jazz pianist and composer, and a filmmaker enriched his sense of formal possibilities.”—Poetry Magazine

(Poetry Magazine )

“The true impulse of [Kees’s] work shows in its constantly surprising inventiveness and in the certainty and naturalness of its speech.”—Hudson Review

(Hudson Review )

“Not many poets can do better than this; not many ever have. . . . This is poetry to read over and over again.”—The Village Voice

(The Village Voice )

From the Inside Flap

"Kees was both a gifted lyric poet and a restless experimenter, whose diverse background as an abstract expressionist painter, a jazz pianist and composer, and a filmmaker enriched his sense of formal possibilities."—Poetry Magazine. "The true impulse of [Kees’s] work shows in its constantly surprising inventiveness and in the certainty and naturalness of its speech."—Hudson Review.

"Not many poets can do better than this; not many ever have. . . . This is poetry to read over and over again."—The Village Voice.

"[The] narrator-hero . . . is Robinson Crusoe, utterly alone on Madison Avenue, a stranger and afraid in the world of high-paying news weeklies, fashionable galleries, jazz concerts, highbrow movies, sophisticated reviews—the world in which Weldon Kees was eminently successful. When he said, in these gripping poems, that it filled him with absolute horror, he meant it. On July 18, 1955, his car was found on the approach to Golden Gate Bridge. He has never been seen since."—New York Times Book Review.

The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees showcases the dark brilliance and absorbing vision of one of America’s most fascinating artistic and literary figures, Weldon Kees (1914–55).

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 180 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books; 3 edition (December 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803278098
• ISBN-13: 978-0803278097
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #101,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kees Combines Harrowing Vision with Darkly Comic Sensibility, February 5, 2000

By 

Suzanne Lummis - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees (Revised Edition) (Paperback)

If the passive despair of Prufrock (or should we say Eliot in a Prufrock mood) could be entwined with the searing wit and rage of S. Plath, the result might resemble Weldon Kees' unforgettable best poems -- twenty of them perhaps, all included in this book. And the comparison with Plath is fair I think, not because both lives ended in suicide but because both were spectacularly inventive imagists and masters of the craft whose poems peer into the abyss. Although this collection contains some of the most harrowing English language poems of our times -- the final poem in the "Robinson" series, certainly -- flashes of black comedy ensure that this book is as pleasing as it is troubling. I for one, find the following lines from "The Crime Club" devilishly pleasing: "Consider the clues: the potato masher in a vase,/The torn photograph of a Wesleyan basketball team,/...The unsent fan letter to Shirley Temple,/The Hoover button on the lapel of the deceased,/The note, 'To be killed this way is quite all right with me.'"

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "This is Grand Central, Mr. Robinson...", June 21, 2006

By 

J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees (Third Edition) (Paperback)

It would have been sad indeed if the work of Weldon Kees had disappeared into obscurity, as it was dangerously close to doing. Nothing escapes this poets' dark, razor edge sensibility;
the whole thing reads as a kind of pessimistic culture shock. Taking his cues from Joyce and Eliot's "Waste Land", he is pitiless in his assessment of the human condition and civilization.

He is not, however, tiringly depressing like Philip Larkin. He has a voice all his own and it is compelling and vivid. It is pretty obvious that his "Robinson" poems are autobiographical, at least in terms of Robinson's perceptions of the world around him. "For My Daughter" is a poem you will not soon forget.

For my part, I do not believe Weldon Kees is still alive. After reading and re-reading this collection I can't help but see that as wishful thinking. You can't fake this kind of sincerity. I would liken him to Leopardi, Beckett, and other masters of poetic darkness, but he has a voice so individual that he needs no predecessors. An absolute must read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best American poet you never heard of--, March 17, 2006

By 

T. Boucher (Gaithersburg, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Collected Poems of Weldon Kees (Third Edition) (Paperback)

Kees is a master of image, and has a profound sense of time and place--his language has the direct and unselfconscious quality of a newspaper headline, and his meters are natural and terse. There is a lumious, jarring quality to his work that makes you feel like you'd found something important that's been lost for a long time. You have. This is the first collection of his work that has ever been generally available.