Customer Reviews

Robinson Jeffers: Selected Poems

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Robinson Jeffers is considered by many scholars to be one of the greatest 20th century American regional poets. Anytime superlatives are used to describe someone or something in this manner there is room for debate. I do not have the academic credentials to enter into any debate concerning the degree of Jeffers' greatness, but I do weigh in with those who highly praise his work. Though born in the Eastern portion of the United States, Jeffers settled in Carmel, California early in his life and spent his last 58 years there. The rugged California coast coupled with the Pacific Ocean provided much of the imagery in his poetry. Included here are several of these poems such as "Morro Bay," "The Purse Seine," and "The Place for No Story" to name a few.

The poems chosen for inclusion in SELECTED POEMS are spread across the last 40 years of his life, 1924 thru 1962, the last few published posthumously. In addition to covering the greater portion of his mature productive years, the poems selected offer a sampling of most of his styles and themes.

One of his earlier narrative poems, "Roan Stallion," has been chosen for inclusion. This powerful poem invokes myth-ritual, theology, racial memory, shock for shock's sake, and blood-lust to name but a few of its themes and undercurrents. "Roan Stallion" is meant to be read, not analyzed, but it, along with the "Tamara" narratives have been analyzed to death by multiple critics and students of Freud. Because his themes in poems such as this were uncomfortable for many people, his popularity as a poet has suffered.

In addition, and again unfortunately for his popularity, Jeffers was an outspoken isolationist during WW II, and wrote a number of poems with themes critical of U.S. involvement in the war. Among those included here are "We Are Those People," "So Many Blood Lakes," and "Calm and Full the Ocean."

Tor House, Jeffers' home in Carmel, and the adjacent Hawk Tower which he built with his own hands for his wife, Una, are open to the public on a limited basis. On two weekend afternoons most weeks, there are two or three docent led tours open to about ten people per tour (reservations a necessity), This book is carried on the tour by the docent, and at appropriate places in the house, garden, or tower, the tour stops and poems are read aloud by volunteers.

My favorite poem for reading on the tour is "The Bed By the Window."

It starts with:

. . . . ."I chose the bed downstairs by the window for a good

. . . . . . . .death bed

. . . . .When we built the house; it is ready waiting."

And concludes with:

. . . . ."When the patient daemon behind the screen of sea-rock

. . . . . . . .and sky

. . . . .Thumps with his staff and calls thrice 'Come Jeffers'"

Jeffers wrote this poem in 1932, kept the bed empty and waiting, and, some 30 years later, in 1962, when he knew he was dying, had himself moved into it and did die there. Reading that poem aloud, while standing beside the bed and looking out the window toward the sea was a one of a kind emotional experience for me. I'm glad that I volunteered to read this poem aloud on that occasion. SELECTED POEMS has had special meaning for me ever since.

First, you have to understand that I am a confirmed lover of Jeffers' poetry. Then you can understand why I have fallen back in love with this volume and recommend it as a great introduction.

Although I had read a few of his poems in a college anthology, this volume introduced me to a more serious love of Jeffers back in the late '60s. I first saw it in the hip pocket of a young man with a backpack and ponytail when we met on a hiking trail in the Rockies. Like I suspect many others, that young man's enthusiasm got me to read Jeffers--from the same paperback--more seriously, and I became thoroughly infatuated with Jeffers long, mighty lines and stark but beautiful images.

When I paid more attention to Jeffers, however, I no longer liked this anthology. It seemed shallow; the selections far from those I would have made myself. (Of course, those selections changed every few weeks.) Had I written a review during those years, I would have lamented the lack of the volume that has since been made available by Tim Hunt's excellent volume of selected works, and recommended this only because no other introduction was available. I was, I guess, a Jeffers snob.

Now, however, I have a renewed appreciation for this volume. The essential poems are largely included, the shortest of Jeffers' long poems (the powerful and comparatively accessable "Roan Stallion") is included, and the size and price are unintimidating. I find myself happily purchasing copies to give as gifts to friends willing to gingerly give Jeffers a try, and it seldom fails to be appreciated at least somewhat. I own just about everything Jeffers wrote, yet this volume is still the one I take with me on airplanes. I am over my snob period, and love this volume again.

If you don't know Jeffers, I recommend this volume highly as a great way to learn about a poet once considered America's best ever. (If you do know Jeffers, you don't need this review.)

Jeffers was a child prodigy, a linguist,a conservationist, and interested in forestry, medicine and general science. He built his own poet's castle overlooking the ocean in Carmel, California. His poetry synthesizes his various interests, providing deep philosophical commentary on the nature of our lives. His "Apology for Bad Dreams" alone is worth the price of this volume, combining an exploration of the beauty of nature with humanity's inherent cruelty in gorgeously-written verse. The long (20+ page)"Roan Stallion" is a refreshing gem to read in our age of soundbites and performance bits. And of course anyone who loves the sea and descriptions of wildlife and natural settings will enjoy Jeffers' work. He depicts the same magnificent Big Sur landscape featured in some of the writings of John Steinbeck, Henry Miller and Jack Kerouac. Finally, he never insults the reader's intelligence, but assumes you are ready for sophisticated yet accessible verse at its finest.

I was first introduced to the work of Robinson Jeffers in an essay by Edward Abbey in which he spoke about the stark unpretentious beauty of Jeffers' poem "Vulture" and from the moment I read it I have been a great fan ever since.

Selected Poems, by Robinson Jeffers includes a great sampling of poems that spans Jeffers entire career, while also including the long poem Roan Stallion, which gives the reader a feel for Jeffers more ambitious longer works such as Cawdor, Tamar and Dear Judas.
It seems that, while some bristle at what could be seen as Jeffers at times misanthropic themes, I believe it is precisely the stark objectivity in poems such as "Original Sin", "We are Those People" and "Vulture" that give his work such vitality and importance.
Thus, what some erroneously perceive as Jeffers' misanthropy, can be better understood as a poet's attempt to bring about the realization of a biocentric view of the universe, which attempts to express the real indifference of Nature. In doing so, Jeffers re-integrates humanity into the natural world, in which every living being is subject to the constant cycles of life, death and rebirth, which is the ultimate law of Nature.

Jeffers' work is not poetry merely for poetry's sake, which is all too often the case in the work produced today, it is Nature translated into the written word--a poetry of the Earth and a celebration of not only life, but also of the mountains, rivers, earth and sky, that provides shelter and nourishes us all.

Back before Big Sur and Carmel became tourist traps, a stubborn man built his own house of stone on the central coast of California. His goal? to live in the wilderness not out of goopy New Age sentiment, but to experience in his soul the essential aloneness of humanity in an indifferent universe of relentess natural change. Robinson Jeffers' held the tragic view of life -- not a popular view now, no, but one well worth considering in a world where science tells us that the life of stars spans only a small portion of the Universe's total existence.

Above all else, this poet was a consummate craftsman. His poems have the solid strength of the rock cliffs he loved so much -- each word, as measured and necessary as the cut of a chisel, shapes the poem. Yet he had a novelist's gift for character and drama as well; his long tales, "Roan Stallion" and "Tamar", grip the reader's heart as well as mind.

The thoughtfully done selection of poems in this book provides a good view of his mature work. If you don't know Jeffers, start here.

...and unfortunately drifting off the national radar. Robinson Jeffers had the pluck to use the word "empire" re: the U.S. during the forties, a time when such remarks were utter heresy. Timely and insightful reading for today's audience. I concur with the other reviewers: this is an excellent (and economical) introduction to Jeffers' work. My only negative observation is that the quality of the printing is poor. But, the excellent quality of the selections makes up for it. Enjoy.

Recently while planning a trip to California, my mother came across a historic home tour of Tor House, the home of poet Robinson Jeffers. I love poetry so I read one of his poems posted on a web site, but it didn't appeal to me. However the house did. I met my family in Ca. and at the end of our vacation we toured Tor House. On the tour was an English professor who told us he taught poetry and spent a good deal of time discussing Jeffers' poems in his classes. Also, the docent's account of Jeffers' life was so intriguing. I realized I had given up on him too soon. My favorite story was that Jeffers apprenticed himself to the stonemason who built the original house so that he could build a tower for his wife Una, the love of his life. They lived simply and fairly happily with their twin sons. He was an incredible lover of nature and animals, and chose the hawk as his symbol. Their house is covered with hawks and unicorns (Una's symbol.) It is so interesting that a man who wrote so passionately against violence identified himself with the traditional symbol of war, the hawk, but this creature meant something completely different to him. Power and freedom.

I picked up this book in the gift shop. Opening it in the middle, I read "Contemplation of the Sword." The poem's dark, austere honesty is balanced by the seductive imagery, sinuous phrases and dramatic punctuation. It's obvious he hated violence and detested the anger that rose in him for hating violence. He loved his wife and children fiercely and wanted to keep them safe. He's a very passionate, emotional man and that comes through vividly in his poems. I love that his work is still relevant today. The emotions that he felt are emotions that I feel. These beautiful poems are works that will compellingly push the reader to think about the world, our place in it and our responsibility for it. The poetry is so rich, ripe and fluid that I hunger for more. Fortunately, the Stanford University Press has compiled a massive five volume set of Jeffers' poems. The bounty is abundant.

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) was an outspoken, vitriolic isolationist during World War II; that stance has colored his reputation as a poet and a human forevermore. But his 'isolation' was more than merely a rejection of America's pretenses of a special destiny and a moral superiority. Jeffers was effectively a hermit, a bleak-eyed flinty misanthrope. In another era, an era of spiritual credulity, he might have been a flagellant saint or a stylite. Instead he lived in a stone house built with his own hands on the rugged Big Sur coast of California, where he wrote his painfully beautiful poems about cruelty and passion in utter isolation from any trends or fashions in the literary world. His work is like nobody else's in the English language. His obdurate pessimism about human nature is uniquely, perversely, a tribute to the human will.

Probably the best review of a poet's work is a sample of his poetry:

SHINE PERISHING REPUBLIC

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and deca-
dence; and home to the mother.

You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stub-
bornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thick-
ening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there
are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught--they say--
God, when he walked on earth.

Jeffers was a phenomenon. You will love it or hate it. Depends on your world view. It has a spiritual basis but is not religious. It is pantheistic; can you stand it?

It's not about consumerism, or the present moment. It's about time and the river (with apologies to Thomas Wolfe). His shorter poems are sometimes breathtaking in their beauty; his epics may please those who read romance novels.

Warning: you may be changed beyond redemption by reading this.

The magnificence of the poetry is basely served by the crassness of this print edition. Do yourself a favor and pay more for an edition that does not mock both the reader and the poetry.