Complete Poems (Revised Edition) [Paperback]

Ernest Hemingway (Author), Nicholas Gerogiannis (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1983

Ernest Hemingway never wished to be widely known as a poet. He concentrated on writing short stories and novels, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1956. But his poetry deserves close attention, if only because it is so revealing. Through verse he expressed anger and disgust—at Dorothy Parker and Edmund Wilson, among others. He parodied the poems and sensibilities of Rudyard Kipling, Joyce Kilmer, Robert Graves, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Gertrude Stein. He recast parts of poems by the likes of Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, giving them his own twist. And he invested these poems with the preoccupations of his novels: sex and desire, battle and aftermath, cats, gin, and bullfights. Nowhere is his delight in drubbing snobs and overrefined writers more apparent.

In this revised edition of the Complete Poems, the editor, Nicholas Gerogiannis, offers here an afterword assessing the influence of the collection, first published in 1979, and an updated bibliography. Readers will be particularly interested in the addition of "Critical Intelligence," a poem written soon after Hemingway's divorce from his first wife in 1927. Also available as a Bison Book: Hemingway's Quarrel with Androgyny by Mark Spilka.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nicholas Gerogiannis, a professor in the Department of International Studies at Auburn University, introduces the poems and clarifies historical and literary references in explanatory notes.

Product Details

• Paperback: 171 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books; Rev Sub edition (January 1, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803272596
• ISBN-13: 978-0803272590
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #661,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ernest Hemingway ranks as the most famous of twentieth-century American writers; like Mark Twain, Hemingway is one of those rare authors most people know about, whether they have read him or not. The difference is that Twain, with his white suit, ubiquitous cigar, and easy wit, survives in the public imagination as a basically, lovable figure, while the deeply imprinted image of Hemingway as rugged and macho has been much less universally admired, for all his fame. Hemingway has been regarded less as a writer dedicated to his craft than as a man of action who happened to be afflicted with genius. When he won the Nobel Prize in 1954, Time magazine reported the news under Heroes rather than Books and went on to describe the author as "a globe-trotting expert on bullfights, booze, women, wars, big game hunting, deep sea fishing, and courage." Hemingway did in fact address all those subjects in his books, and he acquired his expertise through well-reported acts of participation as well as of observation; by going to all the wars of his time, hunting and fishing for great beasts, marrying four times, occasionally getting into fistfights, drinking too much, and becoming, in the end, a worldwide celebrity recognizable for his signature beard and challenging physical pursuits.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Compilation, October 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Complete Poems (Revised Edition) (Paperback)

Author Nicholas Georgiannis has done Hemingway readers -- and poetry readers in general -- a great service by compiling this popular author's poems into an authorized version. Readers will find that Hemingway's poems run the gamut from starkly serious to bitter to silly, often revealing an acrid sense of humor. Those unfamiliar with Hemingway's poetic works will find Georgiannis' Introduction quite helpful in setting the literary background. Furthermore, readers will find the 'Explanatory Notes' and 'Related Readings' at the end of the book are quite helpful in understanding Hemingway's terms and references. My only problem with the book is Georgiannis' decision not to include certain "controversial poems", including 'Hurray for Fonnie Richardson', because it "could hurt a living person." (162) His decision not to hurt anyone is admirable and understandable, but in the end not to be publish those works would be illiberal. So circumstanced, serious students of Hemingway will want the complete man, sins and all. Not to worry: his greatness will go undiminished thanks to the efforts of authors like Nicholas Georgiannis.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ernest the Lionized...Evidently he deserves every bit of it, March 13, 2002

By 

"calico30" (Katy Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Poems (Revised Edition) (Paperback)

I read this short volume without a clear conception of what Hemingway's poetry would turn out to be. I'd always heard it said that Hemingway's economy in his prose rendered paragraphs into a poetry of their own. But the dynamics of poetry are somewhat different from those of prose: While giving one untrammeled use of the English language (heck, you can even be forgiven a few perversions of grammar), you have to have an ear for meter, let the cadence exalt each verse into a brief apotheosis, where prose writing could take twice as much time to shoot its load. Thankfully, Hemingway was as brilliant (and troubled) a poet as he was a novelist.

Hemingway's early poetry is a good indication of what he was soon to create. From the facetious poems about baseball and high school track teams mimicking the verse of his idols,to the smart allecky "Blank Verse" (written as an imposed classroom assignment), we get a good sense of the wry, often witty Hemingway that was to emerge in parts of books such as the Sun Also Rises. Yes, despite the suicide, despite the preoccupation with war and violent sports (bullfight, anyone?) Hemingway had a knack for giving life to people tersely, but with all the effect that a more prolix writer could. (Take the descriptions of Jake drinking wine from a native's winesack on a bus, exultant at the thought of a fishing trip forthcoming.) This, not to say joyful, but at least sometimes happy side to Pappa's poetry is almost completely supplanted by the style that dominated his years in Europe as a WWII correspondent, Cuba, and Idaho. These poems are more technically adroit, sometimes beautiful, but introspective and often a bit more than morose. Ironic: The same man who inveighed against Dorothy Parker for her failed suicide attempts blew his mind out in some corner of Idaho decades after he'd made a name for himself in literature so rockfast that, as long as there are the literate, there will be the Hemingway-lovers.

That notwithstanding, Hemingway made a name with Farewell to Arms, The Battler, et al. These poems are brilliant, but, for the two of you who've never read a Hemingway prose volume, remember: His novels are just glorious poems with more action, characters and plot. And are far more reflective of his genius than even these wonderful selections.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I'm sorry, July 24, 2003

By 

C. Williamson (Hopkins, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Complete Poems (Revised Edition) (Paperback)

I read these poems 25 years ago in a City Lights edition. While EH is a major part of my life through the inscrutable (or perhaps ultimately scrutable) elegance and beauty of his prose, this is some of the worst poetry I've ever read. It is clumsy, it doesn't flow, it is cliche; none of the things that turn language into poems is there. This does nothing to lessen his importance as one of our greatest writers, but not everybody can be transcendant in every medium. (Ever seen one of his paintings? Save yourself the pain. Check out some of Picasso's poems. No, don't.)