Customer Reviews

Edith Wharton: Selected Poems (American Poets Project)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The American Poets Project has again granted us a fine favor by including a sample of selected poems by Edith Wharton. This little book includes approximately 110 pieces of her work which are broken down as follows: Verses (1878), Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verse (1909), Twelve Poems (1926), Uncollected Poems (1879 - 1918), and Manuscript Poems (1881 - 1915). There is a very nicely done introduction by Louis Auchinclass, the editor of this small volume. Some of the works presented here have never before been published, which is a treat within itself.

I will be the first to admit that while I have a great admiration for Edith Wharton as a writer, she is not my favorite poet. To be quite frank, a lot of her work rather depresses me. Now this does not mean that the poetry is bad; heavens no! It only means that it falls outside my personal realm of taste. That is one of the nice things about poetry; there is always something for everyone! Wharton was an extremely emotional writer and used her poetry as a means of expressing her emotion, more so I feel, than many poets of her time. Her earlier works, of which we have some prime examples here, began with a heavy influence from the Romantic era. As we see the author progress we find her drifting into Symbolism and Modernism, which comprise the major body of her works. It is the Modernism that I personally have a bit of a problem with, but again, that is not the reader's problem, it is mine.

When we read any goo biography of this woman, we find an individual who is an absolute control freak as to her emotions. With her poetry she is able to break from this tight control and allows herself the freedom of expression she seldom, if ever, displayed in public.

There are a lot of surprises for the reader of this collection. I was amazed at the passion, compassion and insight to the plight of the Allied Soldiers in France during WWI. I was rather taken back, at first, when I read the previous unpublished "Terminus," which a very erotic ode addressing a tryst with a lover in an environment you cannot imagine this author ever entering. This is something I did not expect. After reading it, it is easy to understand why it did not see the light of day until after her death.

This is a fine little collection and the reader and lover of poetry will certainly learn, enjoy, and grow from its reading. There is much to learn here, both of style and we have the pleasure of getting a glimpse inside the head of a truly fascinating woman. If you are a Wharton fan, a fan of her wonderful novels and short stories, then you are in for a fine feast with this one!

Don Blankenship
The Ozarks

Knowledgeably compiled and deftly edited by novelist and historian Louis Auchincloss, Edith Wharton: Selected Poems Offers contemporary readers an impressive selection of verse by a most remarkable woman who lived a most remarkable life. And who reflected her observations and reflections with masterpieces of poetic expression. Opportunities: Who knows his opportunities? They come/Not trumpet-tongued from Heaven, but small and dumb,/Not beckoning from the future's promised land,/But in the narrow present close at hand./They walk beside us with unsounding feet,/and like those two that trod the Eastern street/And with their Saviour bartered thought for thought,/Our eyes are holden and we know them not. 1878.