Customer Reviews

Sweet Youth: Poems by a Young Man and an Old Man, Old and New 1953-2001

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Sweet Youth is an outstanding collection showcasing the poems that Allen Grossman wrote in his youth. Some of the selections date to the early 1950's, others were originally published in the such books as "A Harlot's Hire" (1961), "The Recluse" (1965) and "And the Dew Lay All Night Upon My Branch" (1973). The brief yet subtle verse is evocative of compelling moods and quite worthy of extended contemplation. The Cry: Sleepwalking, having it both ways and more,/Doing and undoing the raveled sleeve of care/With fluttering fingers, getting nothing done,/Blind with streaming hair,/You nursed our child and put it down/Hours ago. Something else that weeps/Drives you up the hallway in your sleep,/A lost thing, sister to the thing you lost.//To me you are a ghost with bared white breasts/Fainting with hunger for a thing you bore/But, being dead, can never reach/Although you wander in an ecstasy of care/Making of my bed a haunted wood,/A wound, a grave, something not understood.