Described during his lifetime by Thom Gunn as 'one of the most accomplished poets alive, and one of the few of whom it can be said that he will still be worth reading in fifty years time' J. V. Cunningham was perhaps best known for his epigrams. Documenting his early style as an experimental modernist poet during the Depression and his remarkable ability as a translator The Poems of J. V. Cunningham also shows his later emergence as a master of the short, witty poems that made his name. Incorporating much of the material from his 1971 Collected Poems and Epigrams, The Poems of J. V. Cunningham was originally published in 1997 and also includes many of his later poems and translations, some of which appeared in periodicals but have never before been collected together in a book, and is a brilliant introduction to a forgotten poet who was described by the New York Times as 'one of the best poets in America'.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
Cunningham's (1911-1985) precisely bitter epigrams deserve more admirers. This gathering of all his verse returns to print such barbed, impregnable accomplishments as this poem (quoted whole): "Time heals not: it extends a sorrow's scope / As goldsmiths gold, which we may wear like hope." Like Ben Jonson's, Cunningham's best lines often state his moral or stylistic goals: "The classic indignation, / The sullen clarity / Of passions in their station, / Moved by propriety." Other favorite topics are regret, epistemology, bad books, theology, alcohol, and sex. (The lesser poems simply condemn, or resent, or become dirty jokes.) Epigrams state rules, clarify, generalize and show impersonal authority; Cunningham's parched, self-suspicious intelligence fit such ends, and formed his "plain style"-- "Savage, direct and bitten, / Not pitying and unclean." Like the diamonds used as drill bits, Cunningham's rigorously specialized verses are harder and clearer than what they attack, pointed, unornate, small-scale, useful, and valuable.
Copyright © 1996, Boston Review. All rights reserved. -- From The Boston Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © 1996, Boston Review. All rights reserved. -- From The Boston Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
The poet, critic and editor J. V. Cunningham was born in Maryland in 1911. After his father died he postponed college until 1931 when he enrolled at Stanford University. He obtained his degree in Classics in 1934 and a doctorate in English in 1945. He published his first collection of poetry, The Helmsman, in 1942. Other works, including Trivial, Vulgar, and Exalted: Epigrams (1957), The Exclusions of a Rhyme (1960) and Some Salt: Poems and Epigrams (1967) followed this. A Selected Poems and The Collected Poems and Epigrams of J. V. Cunningham appeared in 1971. Cunningham died in 1985.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazingly bittersweet,
By A Customer
This review is from: Poems Of J.V. Cunningham (Hardcover)
I discovered J.V. Cunningham quite by accident. I cannot thank the powers that be enough for this 'accident.' Cunningham is the most forward, bold poet of his time. A true classic, no library should be without his work.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poems as finely made as wristwatches,
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This review is from: Poems Of J.V. Cunningham (Paperback)
I was pleased to find the work of J.V. Cunningham. Over thirty-fiveyears ago I was introduced to his work by a professor who had been a pupil of Yvor Winters. Winters had a very traditional view of poetry. He hated William Carlos Williams verse for example. But he praised Cunningham for poetry as good as anything Ben Jonson wrote. Guy Davenport summed it up nicely when he described Cunningham's poems for being "as finely made as a Swiss watch." Enjoy!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Poet of the Clear Word,
This review is from: Poems Of J.V. Cunningham (Hardcover)
"Maples in the slant sun/The gay color of decay./Was it unforgiveable,/My darling, that you loved me?" The sequence "To What Strangers, What Welcome" by J.V. Cunningham is one of the finest sets of love poems in all of English literature. Spare, mature, formally remarkable, indescribably sad. This book is worth having for those 14 poems alone.
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