Cool, Calm, and Collected: Poems 1960-2000 [Paperback]

Carolyn Kizer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

Selected as a "Best Book of the Year" by the Los Angeles Times and Booklist magazine, and winner of the Independent Publisher Book Award, Cool, Calm, and Collected is a tour de force from one of the nation’s premier poets. For four decades, Carolyn Kizer has been one of the most influential, controversial, and recognizable figures in American poetry. A feminist practically before the term existed, she has never been afraid to say what is on her mind, writing poems infused with sexual politics, social awareness, and literary irreverence.

Cool, Calm, and Collected was reprinted four times in cloth and became one of Copper Canyon Press’s bestselling titles. It features new poems, work from all of Kizer’s previous volumes, translations "from a dizzying number of poets" (New York Times), and several prose pieces, including "Pakistan Journal" and "My Good Father."

. . . We women,
Outside, breathing dust, are still the Other.
The evening sun goes down; time to fix dinner.
"You women have no major phiolosophers." We know.
But we remain philosophic, and say with the Saint,
"Let me enter my chamber and sing my songs of love."
—from "Pro Femina"

"We cannot do without Kizer and never could—here are four decades of compelling reasons why."—Los Angeles Times

"Carolyn Kizer is a national treasure."—San Francisco Chronicle

"The book will appeal to poetry lovers and activists of all stripes."—Publishers Weekly

"No library should be without this collection."—Booklist (starred review)

Carolyn Kizer, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, was educated at Sarah Lawrence College. She co-founded Poetry Northwest; served as the first director of the Literature Program at the National Endowment for the Arts; was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets; and has been a poet-in-residence at Columbia, Stanford, and Princeton. Kizer lives in Sonoma, California.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Kizer's passionate, witty poetry has graced American letters for four decades, and, like a championship rose, it has been lovely in every period, from the tight, budlike, formal early work down to the big, blowsy poems of recent times. This fine collection happily includes ample sections of biographical prose as well as of verse translations and previously unpublished poems. Not that Kizer's work demands a biographical trellis. For, while never strictly a confessional poet, Kizer has provided personal context within each poem. One of the most striking aspects of her work is how avant-garde it appears--in terms of theme and voice, not of style. Her earliest book included poems in which she assumed the personae of goddesses; they remain more energetically feminine and feminist than many published yesterday. She has been vividly aware of female poets' dual roles as "handmaidens / To our own goddess . . . narcissists by necessity." Most powerfully, she has written of woman's struggle to speak and be heard in the multipartite poem "Pro Femina," which was published in sections over many decades. Most recently, Kizer has produced dozens of tender, passionate poems of age and loss, and she has defined herself as "yoked in sympathy for all that's human." The stately power of her verse has never failed her. No library should be without this collection. Patricia Monaghan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

Maryam
What Is True
Tirade For The Next-to-last Act
Bangla Desh: 1
Bangla Desh: 2. The Blood In My Eyes
Bangla Desh: 3. Revisited After The Holocuast, 1973
Elegy For Hassan Nasir
If I Were Certain
Flood At The International Writing Program
My Sister's Letter
On The Way Back
Professional Poet
Prostitution
When I Came Back
Bits Of Reminiscence
Brother, I Am Here
Missing You
Perhaps ...; For The Loneliness Of An Author
Returning Home
The Singing Flower
To ---
To The Oak
Unexpected Meeting
When You Come Past My Window
Spring-gazing Song: 1
Spring-gazing Song: 2
Weaving Love-knots: 1
Weaving Love-knots: 2
'?.!'
After Basho
Afternoon Happiness
Afterthoughts Of Donna Elvira
An American Beauty
Amusing Our Daughters
Anniversaries: Claremont Avenue, From 1945
Antique Father
The Apostate
Arthur's Party
The Ashes
Birthday Poem For A Childless Man
Bitch
The Blessing
By The Riverside
Children
Columns And Caryatids: 1. The Wife
Columns And Caryatids: 2. The Mother
Columns And Caryatids: 3. The Lover
Complex Autumnal
The Copulating Gods
Cultural Evolution
Cupid And Venus
The Damnation
Dangerous Games
Days Of Q986
The Death Of A Public Servant; In Memoriam, Herbert Norman
Dixit Insipiens
Dream Of A Large Lady
The Dying Goddess
Election Day, 1984
Eleutheria
Epithalamion
Exodus
Fearful Women
Fin-de-siecle Blues
Final Meeting
The First Of June Again
The Flower
Food Of Love
For Jan As The End Draws Near
For Jan, In Bar Maria
For My Daughter
For Sappho / After Sappho
From An Artist's House
Gerda
The Gift
The Glass
The Good Author
The Great Blue Heron
Halation
Heart's Limbo
Hera, Hung From The Sky
Hiding Our Love
Horseback
How It Passes
In Hell With Virg And Dan: Canto 17
In The First Stanza
In The Night
Index, A Mountain
Ingathering
The Intruder
The Italian Kittens
The Light
Lines To Accompany Flowers For Eve
Linked Verses
A Long Line Of Doctors
Lost In Translation
Love Song
Lovemusic
Marriage Song; With Commentary
Medicine
Medicine Ii
A Month In Summer
Mud Soup
A Muse
A Muse Of Water
My Good Father
Night Sounds
Not Writing Poems About Children
October, 1973
The Old Gods
On A Line From Julian
On A Line From Sophocles
On A Line From Valery
On Rising From The Dead
One To Nothing
The Oration
Parents' Pantoum
The Patient Lovers
Pearl
Persephone Pauses
Plaint Of The Poet In An Ignorant Age
Poem For Your Birthday
Poem, Small And Delible
A Poet's Household
Postcards From Rotterdam
Pro Femina: Five. The Erotic Philosophers
Pro Femina: Four. Fanny
Pro Femina: One
Pro Femina: Three
Pro Femina: Two
Promising Author
Race Relations
Reading Your Poems In Your House While You Are Away
Reunion
Running Away From Home
Season Of Lovers And Assassins
Second Time Around
Semele Recycled
Shalimar Gardens
The Silent Man
Singing Aloud
The Skein
A Song For Muriel
Streets Of Pearl And Gold
The Suburbans
Summer Near The River
Suppressing The Evidence
Thrall
Threatening Letter
Through A Glass Eye, Lightly
To A Visiting Poet In A College Dormitory
To An Unknown Poet
To My Friend Who Rhymes With Peace
To My Friend, Behind Walls
Trio
Twelve O'clock
Two Poets By The Lake
Tying One On In Vienna
The Ungrateful Garden
Union Of Women
The Valley Of The Fallen
Voyager
The Wars In Sweden
The Way We Write Letters
What The Bones Know
What Was In A Name
Where I've Been All My Life
A Widow In Wintertime
Winter Song
The Worms
Generations; For My Daughter
Keep Hidden From Me
A Present For Tu Fu From Li Po
Equinox, Sels.
Seven Sides And Seven Syllables
Elegy
Climate And Lyre
Samuel, Sels.
Izhab-o-rasai: Expression And Reach
Adviser To The Court: East Of The Palace Gates: Working Late
Adviser To The Court: End Of An Audience
Adviser To The Court: On The Way Out
Adviser To The Court: Reply To A Friend's Advice
Adviser To The Court: To A Brother Official
Adviser To The Court: Working All Night In Springtime
Banishment: Renunion
Banishment: Too Much Heat, Too Much Work
Dejeuner Sur L'herbe
For The Prince In Exile; Li Chin, Ad 750
Lo Yu Park
The Meandering River Poems: Drinking There Alone
The Meandering River Poems: Drinking With Friends
The Meandering River Poems: I Go Too
The Meandering River Poems: Rain There
The Meandering River Poems: Spring Goes
My Home Town
Testament
Thwarted
Tu Fu To Li Po
A Visit In Winter To The Temple Of His Mystical Majesty
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 520 pages
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press; Second edition (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556591810
• ISBN-13: 978-1556591815
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #731,385 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cool, Calm Collection!, January 8, 2001

By 

B.D. (Rancho San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cool Calm & Collected Poems 1960-2000 (Hardcover)

Carolyn Kizer has done the world of poetry a favor by issuing another stellar collection of poems for sheer entertainment, soul-pondering, reflection, escape, psyche-pleasure and engagement with the joys of the music of the written word. Her finest piece to date is a villanelle, a poignant commentary on the Gulf War of several years ago. While not included in this collection, it bears reciting here to get an idea of the value of Carolyn's verse:(On a Line from Valery) The whole green sky is dying. the last tree flares/ With a great burst of supernatural rose/ Under a canopy of poisonous airs.

Could we imagine our return to prayers/ To end in time before time's final throes,/ The green sky dying as the last tree flares?

But we were young in judgment, gray in hairs/ Who could make peace; but it was war we chose,/ To spread its canopy of poisoning airs.

Not all our children's pleas and women's stares/ Could steer us from this hell. And now God knows/ His whole green sky is dying as it flares.

Our crops of wheat have turned to fields of tares./ This dreadful century staggers to its close/ And the sky dies for us, its poisoned heirs.

All rain was dust. Its granules were our cares./ Throats burst as everywhere winter arose/ To kill the whole green sky. The last tree bears/ Within its canopy ripe poisoned pears.

Enjoy this newest work of art by as talented a poet as they come.