Doveglion: Collected Poems (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Jose Garcia Villa (Author), John Edwin Cowen (Editor), Luis H. Francia (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 29, 2008 | Series: Penguin Classics

The centennial edition of major Filipino writer José Garcia Villa’s collected poetry

Known as the “Pope of Greenwich Village,” José Garcia Villa had a special status as the only Asian poet among a group of modern literary giants in 1940s New York that included W. H. Auden, Tennessee Williams, and a young Gore Vidal. But beyond his exotic ethnicity, Villa was a global poet who was admired for “the reverence, the raptness, the depth of concentration in [his] bravely deep poems” (Marianne Moore). Doveglion (Villa’s pen name—for dove, eagle, and lion) contains Villa’s collected poetry, including rare and previously unpublished material.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“ Villa seems to me to possess one of the purest and most natural gifts discoverable anywhere in contemporary poetry.”
—Mark Van Doren

“ [Villa is] a poet with a great, even an astounding, and perfectly original gift. . . . The best of his poems are among the most beautiful written in our time.”
—Edith Sitwell

About the Author

José Garcia Villa (1908–1997) immigrated to the United States from his native Philippines in 1930 and became active in New York’s literary scene as a poet, editor, and lecturer. His first book of poems, Have Come, Am Here, was published by Viking in 1942 to great critical acclaim. John Edwin Cowen is the literary trustee for the Villa estate. He lives in New Jersey. Luis H. Francia is an award-winning poet and writer.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (July 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0143105353
• ISBN-13: 978-0143105350
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #516,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars pure, poetic magnificence!, January 19, 2009

By 

Romualdo Monteclar "musicmaniac" (hanover, pa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Doveglion: Collected Poems (Penguin Classics) (Paperback)

Few poets have impressed me, yet this one--Jose Garcia Villa--is, without doubt, the most impressive. What's striking is his rare gift of subtlety and mastery of the English words that his poems seem like brief, beautiful symphonies. That he is one of those underrated literary geniuses of our time is beyond me; but perhaps the poet Villa himself predicted his own reputation when he wrote in one of his poems these
poignant lines:
Nobody yet knows who I am,
Nor myself may;
Nor yet what I deal,
Nor yet where I lead.