Customer Reviews

Green River: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

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

 

 

Robert Morgan published poetry for thirty years before making the bestseller lists with his novel Gap Creek. Green River offers selections from his first eight books, from Zirconia Poems (1969) to Sigodlin (1990), plus a few new poems. Morgan usually writes about the Appalachian culture and landscape (as in the terrifying "Mountain Bride"), but there are notable exceptions, such as his sublime "Vietnam War Memorial." It's startling to see how good his poems are right from the beginning, fascinating to see how his style changes over the years, and dismaying to think that a poet this remarkable could be so little-known. Reading this book led me to read all of his other poetry books; now I can say that if Green River has a fault, it's that it's too selective. Few poets are as consistently good as Morgan is; there are many more very fine poems that could easily have found their way into this selection. But Green River is a great introduction to the work of this contemporary master.