Selected Poems: 1958-1984 [Paperback]

John Wieners (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1986 | ISBN-10: 087685661X | ISBN-13: 978-0876856611

"It is thrilling to watch the drama develop!"
Allen Ginsberg

So quoth one of the 20th century's most well-known poets - and not about the latest piece of manufactured pop culture suspense, be it from John Grisham or Jerry Bruckheimer, but about the poetic work of John Wieners. Wieners, unknown to so many today, was schooled at the famed Black Mountain College and, taking his cue from contemporaneous poets, focused his art on such themes as drugs, sex, and homosexuality.

Considered by many to be a most undeservedly unrecognized genius, in this collection "Wieners' glory is solitary, as pure poet" (Ginsberg). Certainly, Wieners has the capacity, as great poets must, to heighten and change one's consciousness of the world; this collection brings the pains and joys of a unique man, the Weltanschauung of one who has seen more than most, to the willing reader.

DAVID ASPELIN
died at 16
put a rifle in his mouth, and laid across his bed at night.
After he held my hand on the way home and said
I will be dead tomorrow.

("A Poem for the Dead I Know")

Editorial Reviews

Review

About Himself, The Author Writes
Acceptance
Act #2
The Acts Of Youth
Adrift A Month
After Byron's Maid Of Athens
After Dinner On Pickney Street
After Reading Second Avenue
After Symonds' Venice
After The Orgasm
Ailsa's Last Will And Testament
Alcohol Doesn't Ease The Pain Nor
Alida's Artists In Crime
An Anniversary Of Death
Apparition
At Big Sur
Au Naturel
Au Rive
August 20, 1986
Bequest
Biding In The Gloom
Billie
The Blind See Only This World (a Christmas Card)
Brandy
Broken Hearted Memories
By The Bars
By The Five Dollar Bill
Cage
Carnegie
A Casket Before Dark?
Casual Love
Caviar Tears
The Charles Manson Death Cult
Charles' Death
Children Of The Working Class
Chinoiserie
Cocaine
Concentration
Confession
Consolation
Contradicting Picasso
Cosmetics
The Dark Brew
A Dawn Cocktail
December Epiphany
Denial
Deprivation
Desperation
Determination
Does His Voice Sound Some Echo In Your Heart
Dormant Lamont
Dot
Dream
Drinkin Lonely Wine
The Eagle Bar
Espionage
The Face Of A Poor Woman
The Face Of An Angry Man
Fame, Great Travel, Speed, Beauty - Youth
February
Feminine Soliloquy
Finding The Key To Double Indemnity
First Poem After Silence Since Thanksgiving
For A Brighter Sun
For Ed Dorn
For Jan As The End Draws Near
For Judith Evelyn, Post-theatre!
For Marion
For My Boss Without An Office
For The Galleries
Forthcoming
The Garbos And Dietrichs
Gardenias
The Gay World Has Changed
Glimpse
Good-time Charley's Got The Blues
Goodbye
Hardness Prompts Literature, Unspoken Terms
He Ain't For Real
Head Shop
Here For The Night
High Noon
Home-duty
Honesty
How Dare You?
How Perfect, How Quintessential!
How To Cope With This?
Humiliation
I Can't Put My Head On The Pillow
I Hope It Goes On
I Walk Under The Distant Stars
I'm
I'm Attracted To You, Forgetting
Idyll
Ii Alone
Impasse
The Imperatrice
In One's Mind
In Public
In The Darkness
In The Half Light Of Holding, Fr. Autumn In New York
Indignation
Inoperable
Insulted
Invitation
Je Oubli
Josepha, Upon The Damascus
Just An Ordinary Joe
Justice
Keep It
King Solomon's Magnetic Quiz
Klugwerth
Lady Macbeth Degenerates
Larders
A Last English Soldier's Washington Supper Thais
Le Chariot
Le Dictatorial Circle
Let The Heart's Pain Slack Off
The Lights In Town
Lines
Literary Reminiscence Continued Part 2
Long Nook
Looking For Women
Lordship
Lost Poems Are Like Old Friends, Amore
Louisa Adams
Louise
Love-life
Luchow Choc-au-lait
Ma's Deck Chairs
Maine
Maria Gouverneur
Meadow Where All Things Grow ...
Melancholy
The Memoirs Of A Cad
Menu
The Mermaid's Song
Moon Poems
Morgana La Fay
Mother Sounds The Key
Mr. Bailey
Music
My First Midnight 49th Birthday Supper
My Mother
Naked
Necromancy
New Form
Niagara Falls
The Night Is Cold, Fr. Autumn In New York
No Loving Son
No Poison Out Of Penury
Not This Agony Of Love, Without Being Loved
November 7, Re-entry
Ode On A Common Fountain
The Old Man
On The Back To The Cover Of The Algeria Poems
Osterreich
Outside The President's Palace
The Pale Orchid
The Patio
Patricians
Paul Ii
Pennies For The Fair At Works
Physical Wanting
Piazza
Pierced With A Miniature Electric Track
Plymouth: A Test On Corpses
A Poem For Benzedrine
A Poem For Cocksuckers
A Poem For Early Risers
A Poem For Movie Goers
A Poem For Museum Goers
A Poem For Painters
A Poem For Record Players
A Poem For The Dead I Know
A Poem For The Insane
A Poem For The Old Man
A Poem For Trapped Things
A Poem For Vipers
The Pool Of Light
Prime Duty
Private Estate
Procrastination
Queer
Reading In Bed
Realization
Refrain
Removed Place
Retial
Rubbish
Scandal
September Eleventh
Sequel To A Poem For Painters
A Series
The Serpent's Hiss
Shall Idleness Ring Then Your Eyes Like The Pest?
Signs Of The President Machine
Silver Rings
Soil Fad
Solitary Pleasure
Some Men Seek Silence For Their Company
Sonnet
Sonnet Jeannette
The Spoiled Son
Spring
Stationary
Stop Watch
Strange
Stroll
The Suck
The Suicide
Suisse
Sunday Times Meara In Attire Of The Opposite Sex
Sunset
Supplication
Surete
Sustenance
Tashi
Then Swing To Topsy, A Cool Bass
There Are Holy Orders In Life
This Love That Moves The World ...
Times Square
To Billie Holiday's If I Were You
To Carol Berge
To D
To Ed Budowski
To Frieda
To My Mother
To Nell Evans
To Petty Cash
To Randy, My Valet
To Sink Love
To Sleep Alone
To The Bad Debts In The United States Depts
Today We Had A Wonderful Day
Top Ten 5th Column
Tours
Trimeters
Tuesday 7:00 Pm
Two Barbarians
Two Years Later
Understood Disbelief In Paganism, Lies And Heresy
Unhired
Unwaking
Vulture
The Waning Of The Harvest Moon
We Have A Flame Within Us I Told Charles
Wedneday Or Something
Welfare Agency Adoption
What Are You Saying
What Do I Care For Time
White Slavery
The Windows
The Windows Of Waltham
With Meaning
The Woman
Wrapped Up In An Indain Blanket
Writing Until Dark, Either At The Afternoon ...
Ww
Yes, Youth Are Marching On Against The World
You Talk Of Going ...
Youth
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder®

Product Details

• Paperback: 317 pages
• Publisher: Black Sparrow Press (April 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087685661X
• ISBN-13: 978-0876856611
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,427 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gateway into a tortured mind, May 19, 2001

By 

Karl Dettmer (Staten Island, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Selected Poems: 1958-1984 (Paperback)

In 1989 I had the opportunity to listen to John Weiners read and discuss his poetry. If discuss is the right word. By then Mr. Weiners mental state had pretty well deterierated to a point that he made little sense. But his poetry did. From his battles with drugs, his sexuality and religion, Mr. Weiners poetry spoke volumes about him and his life. I am not a poetry fan, but somehow someway his poetry spoke to me. His use of the language and his passion will touch and engage even a non poetry fan.

7 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the secret BEAT POET best kept secret like a true fix, April 19, 2001

By 

Anita Fix (Alcazar in the Land of Enchantment) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Selected Poems: 1958-1984 (Paperback)

John Wieners' the authentic thing,surpassing all art-historic poetic requirement he's an insider from that ruthlessly over-publicized "BEAT" scene,"famous among the famous" if you will...He's an insider in the sense that he occupies the inside of an anonymous hotel like a religous retreat, inside his own sympathetic head where alls recorded in a private diarie, inside a lyrical quest for the heartbroken line eradicating everything...he's in the business of healing words: a modern-day Rilke with the gorgeous lyrical gift imparted on every page. One imagines his words coming from sitting on the edge of the bed like sitting at the edge of the world waiting for it all to painlessly end with the formality of an unacknowledged graceful bow. John Wieners knows the-HERO-IN-side-of-us-all; having suffered drugs:the divorce from societal companionship, the physicality of that narcotic hell,all for that invioable annihilating peace becoming of an unattainable suicide where forgivness reigns supreme. He knows the tortured homosexual shared-secret hell of keeping the forbidden joy hidden...as well as the erotic's supremacy of form and all's deposited in his pages in exquisite scripture. Reading his poems is comparable to getting high in a public restroom: consider it an indulgence in secret vice your closest friends can only guess at by the disturbed glint & gloss over your eyes. Going out in public is never the same after reading him, nor will the beat generation ever be the same for you again once you've found his work; a wholly unimaginable dimension of beatitude poetics will open your eyes, mind and legs to a vast new range of experience previously ignored by public and scholars alike. I do not consider it a startling sin he's un-recognized, un-acknowledged, and un-appreaciated, if anything it has merely made him stronger and deemed all his admirer's: initiates, and all those poets schooled by him: adepts. One more thing, besides the obvious study of evil he has accomplished in his verses lies all earthly and otherwordly heavens' astounding psalms. If you do not already become ecstatic when under the influence of poetry this will surely make you drunk, and if it's your first time, welcome;and if you don't heed the warnings of the fanatic,then for posterity's sake at least let me say : There is a hero-in-side-of-us-all...