April 1, 1999
Rock-Study with Wanderer
From the Spring 1948 issue. “Cold cold cold of a special night” Summer and winter sings under the beast The ravished doll Hear in the middle wasteThe blue doll of the […]
April 1, 1999
Letter to His Brother
From the Summer 1939 issue. The night is on these hills, and some can sleep.Some stare into the dark, some walk.Only the sound of glasses and of talk,Of cracking […]
April 1, 1999
Nineteen Thirty-Eight
From the Summer 1939 issue. Across the frontiers of the helpless worldThe great planes swarm, the carriers of death,Germs in the healthy body of the air,And blast our cities where […]
April 1, 1999
Responsible Delight: Revaluation: John Berryman
Like his raucous character Henry, protagonist of his fragmented epic, The Dream Songs, John Berryman emerges in his work and life a “human American man.” The issues the Dream Songs […]
July 1, 1998
Winter in Dunbarton
Time smiling on this sundial of a world Corrupted the snow-monster and the worm, Ransacker of shard statues and the peers Of Europe; but our cat is cold, is curled […]
July 1, 1998
Satan’s Confession
I. The Garden “My laurels are cut down,”The Son of Morning mourns; ”Old Adam’s funeral wreath, Once crossed with death,Is Jesus’ crown,The Scapegoat’s Crown of thorns. There is an idle-richImage of the […]
July 1, 1998
The Dandelion Girls
From THE KENYON REVIEW, WINTER 1939 As home-made candles with fuzzy wicksBent birches sprout out of a knobWhere brilliant clouds have surged away —Clouds are luxuriantly grey. Slackly curling below […]
July 1, 1998
Revaluation: Early Poems of Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell’s poems that appeared in The Kenyon Review from its first number to its eighth provide a work-in-progress view of his early development. John Crowe Ransom showed high confidence […]
July 1, 1998
The Cities’ Summer Death
The summer hospital enframes In its fashionable windows Boats brow-beaten by varnished storms And curbed-off grass where no cows browse. Grandfather feathery as thought Furls his flurried wrapper and floats […]
July 1, 1998
Mr. Edwards and the Spider
I saw the spiders marching through the air, Swimming from tree to tree that mildewed day In latter August when the hay Came creaking to the barn. But where The […]
July 1, 1998
The First Sunday in Lent
From THE KENYON REVIEW, AUTUMN 1946 1. IN THE ATTIC The crooked family chestnut sighs, for March, Time’s fool, is storming up and down the town; The gray snow squelches and […]
July 1, 1998
At a Bible House
At a Bible HouseWhere smoking is forbidden By the Prophet’s Law, I saw you wiry, bed-ridden, Gone in the kidneys: raw Onions and a louse Twitched on the sheet before […]