Night Music: Poems [Paperback]

L. E. Sissman (Author), Peter Davison (Compiler), Edward Hirsch (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 1999

Selected by Peter Davison with an introduction by Edward Hirsch. Sissman was a true phenomenon in American poetry. He published his first book, a collection of antic, autobiographical episodes in blank verse, in 1968. Eight years and three books later, he died of Hodgkin's disease at the age of forty-eight. Of Sissman's remarkable final poems John Updike wrote, "What other poet had ever given such wry and unblinking witness to his own dying? His poetry gave back to life more generously than he had received, and carried his beautiful wit into darkness undimmed." Now Sissman's longtime editor, Peter Davison, has selected from his lifework the essential poems--the essence of an American original. (A Mariner Original)

Editorial Reviews

Review

At The Bar, 1948
The Big Rock-candy Mountain
Cancer: A Dream
Canzone: Aubade
Canzone: Aubade: Envoy
Cockaigne: A Dream
A College Room: Lowell R-34, 1945
Dear George Orwell, 1950-1965
A Deathplace
December 27, 1966
Dying: An Introduction
East Congress And Mcdougall Streets, Detroit, May 25
Henley, July 4: 1914-1964
Homage To Clotho: A Hospital Suite
In And Out: A Home Away From Home, 1947
In And Out: Severance Of Connections, 1946
In Bardbury
J.j.'s Envoy
J.j.'s Levee, 1946
Just A Whack At Empson
A Late Good Night: 1. Shop Talk
A Late Good Night: 2. After Hours
A Late Good Night: 3. Afterward
A Late Good Night: 4. Now
Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen: A Mouth-organ Tune
A Loss Of Largess; Its Recapture (and Point After)
Love Day, 1945: 1. Minus One
Love Day, 1945: 2. L-day
Love Day, 1945: 3. Plus Five
Love Day, 1945: 4. Plus Thirty-seven
Man And Wife
The Marcschallin, Joy Street, July 3, 1949: 1
The Marcschallin, Joy Street, July 3, 1949: 2
The Marcschallin, Joy Street, July 3, 1949: 3
The Marcschallin, Joy Street, July 3, 1949: 4
The Marcschallin, Joy Street, July 3, 1949: 5
The Marcschallin, Joy Street, July 3, 1949: 6
The Marcschallin, Joy Street, July 3, 1949: 7
The Marcschallin, Joy Street, July 3, 1949: 8
The Museum Of Comparative Zoology
The Nanny Boat, 1957: 1. Down
The Nanny Boat, 1957: 2. There
The Nanny Boat, 1957: 3. Back
Negatives
Our Literary Heritage: 1. Riverside Drive, 1929
Our Literary Heritage: 2. Hotel Shawmut, Boston, 1946
Our Literary Heritage: 3. Deus Ex Machina, Flushing, 1966
Our Literary Heritage: 4. Lament For The Makers, Including Me: 1967new
Parents In Winter; 1. Mother At The Palace, 1914
Parents In Winter; 2. Father At Packard's, 1915
Peace Comes To Still River, Mass
Safety At Forty: Or, An Abecedarian Takes A Walk
Small Space
Solo, Head Tide
Sondra Dead Or Alive: 1. Cambridge, 1955
Sondra Dead Or Alive: 2. Le Tombeau De Sondra Mann
Sondra Dead Or Alive: Envoy
Stillman Infirmary
Three American Dreams: A Suite In Phillips House: 1. Old Copy Chiefs
Three American Dreams: A Suite In Phillips House: 2. Kid Wombat
Three American Dreams: A Suite In Phillips House: 3. Death Blackness
Tras Os Montes (197-)
Tras Os Montes: 1. Mother (1892-1973)
Tras Os Montes: 2. Father (1895-1974)
The Tree Warden: 1. A Farewell To Elms
The Tree Warden: 2. The Second Equino
The Tree Warden: 3. December Thirty-first
The Tree Warden: 4. May Day
Two Happenings In Boston: 1. A Disappearance In West Cedar Street
Two Happenings In Boston: 2. A Reading In Huntington Avenue
The Village: The Seasons: 1. January 22, 1932
The Village: The Seasons: 2. May 29, 1941
The Village: The Seasons: 3. December 29, 1949
The Village: The Seasons: 4. July 14, 1951
Visiting Chaos
A War Requiem: 1. Fall Planting
A War Requiem: 2. Wintertime And Spring
A War Requiem: 3. High Summer
A War Requiem: 4. Harvest Home
A War Requiem: 5. In The New Year
The West Forties: Morning, Noon, And Night
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

About the Author

Edward Hirsch is the author of six books of poems and three books of prose, among them the national bestseller How to Read a Poem: And Fall in Love with Poetry. He has received the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Prix de Rome, and a MacArthur Fellowship, and is president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He lives in New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1st edition (February 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395925703
• ISBN-13: 978-0395925706
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #333,796 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Where has this poet been all my life?, April 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Night Music: Poems (Paperback)

I'd never heard of the late L.E. Sissman till I went to a reading of poems from this book at Harvard. Peter Davison and John Updike reminisced about him and read his wonderful story-poems with zest and humor and real tenderness. Was there ever a poet who wrote about his youth with more manic joy, or about his own dying (from Hodgkin's disease) with more unblinking frankness? I doubt it, and I doubt that there is another poet of his generation (the sixties) who wrote with such immediate accessability--he's a poet every American dog or cat can understand and enjoy. What a find! Thank you Mr. Davison for bringing him back into print.

5.0 out of 5 stars Ed Sissman remembered, March 22, 2010

By 

Rosemary F. Kotkowski "Rosemary in Vero Beach" (vero beach fl) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Night Music: Poems (Paperback)

I met Ed Sissman back in 1946 in Cambridge, Massachusetts while a student at Wheaton College. He was a gentle giant. He would write me poems; I suspect I was his first girlfriend. I lost touch before I married in early 1949. When he began publishing poetry in the New Yorker magazine I wrote him a fan letter, and we had lunch in Boston where he showed me page proofs of a new poem. That was in 1966. Thereafter, it was easy to follow his life through his monthly Atlantic Monthly articles and subsequently follow the course of his fatal illness. I love his poetry. He wrote about his daily trials and happinesses clearly and understandably, unlike so much modern poetry, and with wry humor. The world has lost its innocent bystander who would have enlivened our contemporary world with wit and compassion.