Informationen zum Autor Edited by Robert Mezey Klappentext In this provocative and thoughtful anthology, many voices join in illuminating the remarkably vast and varied American West. The verse collected here ranges from American Indian tribal poems to old folk songs like The Streets of Laredo, from country-western lyrics to the work of such foreign poets as Bertolt Brecht and Zbigniew Herbert. Here is the West in all its rich varietythe harsh life of farms and ranches; man's destructive invasion into forest and desert solitudes; the bars and bistros of San Francisco and Hollywood; Pacific surf and endless highways; the ghost towns, the poverty, and the legendary world of cowpunchers and gunslingers. From Robert Frost's Once by the Pacific to Charles Bukowski's Vegas, from Fred Koller's Lone Star State of Mind to Thom Gunn's San Francisco Streetsthe West is evoked in all its incarnations, both actual and mythic. At the Bomb Testing Site At noon in the desert a panting lizard waited for history, its elbows tense, watching the curve of a particular road as if something might happen. It was looking at something farther off than people could see, an important scene acted in stone for little selves at the flute end of consequences. There was just a continent without much on it under a sky that never cared less. Ready for a change, the elbows waited. The hands gripped hard on the desert. Zusammenfassung In this provocative and thoughtful anthology! many voices join in illuminating the remarkably vast and varied American West. The verse collected here ranges from American Indian tribal poems to old folk songs like The Streets of Laredo! from country-western lyrics to the work of such foreign poets as Bertolt Brecht and Zbigniew Herbert. Here is the West in all its rich varietythe harsh life of farms and ranches; man's destructive invasion into forest and desert solitudes; the bars and bistros of San Francisco and Hollywood; Pacific surf and endless highways; the ghost towns! the poverty! and the legendary world of cowpunchers and gunslingers. From Robert Frost's Once by the Pacific to Charles Bukowski's Vegas! from Fred Koller's Lone Star State of Mind to Thom Gunn's San Francisco Streetsthe West is evoked in all its incarnations! both actual and mythic. Inhaltsverzeichnis Foreword ROBERT FROST (18741963) Once by the Pacific Auspex The Gift Outright GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE (18801918) Annie WITTER BYNNER (18811968) Defeat ROBINSON JEFFERS (18871962) Compensation The Eye FOLKSONGS Me and My Uncle Jesse James The Streets of Laredo The Buffalo Skinners THOMAS HORNSBY FERRIL (18961988) Bookmarks Science Came West BERTOLT BRECHT (18981956) Hollywood Landscape of Exile JANET LEWIS (18991998) For John Muir, a Century and More Afte His Time TRIBAL POEMS Chippewa: Sometimes I go about Yokuts: Song of the Eclipse Makah: Song Hidatsa: We Made a Fire Papago: Song of the Brown Buzzard Dakota: Song of Reproach Chippewa: Where the Fight Was Pawnee: Better to Die Young Crow: Prayer Offering Malecite: Tale Pawnee: Buffalo Dance Song Chemehuevi: Love Song Sanpoil: After Hunting Yuma: Death Song Sioux: The earth is all that lives YVOR WINTERS (19001968) The Journey On Rereading a Passage from John Muir John Sutter To the Holy Spirit BREWSTER GHISELIN (19031996) Rattlesnake Headland KENNETH REXROTH (19051982) From Andree Rexroth Kings River Canyon THEODORE ROETHKE (19081963) The Rose JOSEPHINE MILES (19111985) West from Ithaca J. ...

Autorentext

Edited by Robert Mezey

Klappentext

In this provocative and thoughtful anthology, many voices join in illuminating the remarkably vast and varied American West. The verse collected here ranges from American Indian tribal poems to old folk songs like “The Streets of Laredo,” from country-western lyrics to the work of such foreign poets as Bertolt Brecht and Zbigniew Herbert. Here is the West in all its rich variety–the harsh life of farms and ranches; man’s destructive invasion into forest and desert solitudes; the bars and bistros of San Francisco and Hollywood; Pacific surf and endless highways; the ghost towns, the poverty, and the legendary world of cowpunchers and gunslingers.

From Robert Frost’s “Once by the Pacific” to Charles Bukowski’s “Vegas,” from Fred Koller’s “Lone Star State of Mind” to Thom Gunn’s “San Francisco Streets”–the West is evoked in all its incarnations, both actual and mythic.

Leseprobe
At the Bomb Testing Site

At noon in the desert a panting lizard
waited for history, its elbows tense,
watching the curve of a particular road
as if something might happen.

It was looking at something farther off
than people could see, an important scene
acted in stone for little selves
at the flute end of consequences.

There was just a continent without much on it
under a sky that never cared less.
Ready for a change, the elbows waited.
The hands gripped hard on the desert.

Inhalt

Foreword

*ROBERT FROST (1874–1963)
*Once by the Pacific
Auspex
The Gift Outright

*GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE (1880–1918)
*Annie

*WITTER BYNNER (1881–1968)
*Defeat

*ROBINSON JEFFERS (1887–1962)
*Compensation
The Eye

*FOLKSONGS
*Me and My Uncle
Jesse James
The Streets of Laredo
The Buffalo Skinners

*THOMAS HORNSBY FERRIL (1896–1988)
*Bookmarks
Science Came West

*BERTOLT BRECHT (1898–1956)
*Hollywood
Landscape of Exile

*JANET LEWIS (1899–1998)
*For John Muir, a Century and More Afte His Time

*TRIBAL POEMS
*Chippewa: “Sometimes I go about”
Yokuts: Song of the Eclipse
Makah: Song
Hidatsa: We Made a Fire
Papago: Song of the Brown Buzzard
Dakota: Song of Reproach
Chippewa: Where the Fight Was
Pawnee: Better to Die Young
Crow: Prayer Offering
Malecite: Tale
Pawnee: Buffalo Dance Song
Chemehuevi: Love Song
Sanpoil: After Hunting
Yuma: Death Song
Sioux: “The earth is all that lives”

*YVOR WINTERS (1900–1968)
*The Journey
On Rereading a Passage from John Muir
John Sutter
To the Holy Spirit

*BREWSTER GHISELIN (1903–1996)
*Rattlesnake
Headland

KENNETH REXROTH (1905–1982)
From Andree Rexroth
—Kings River Canyon

*THEODORE ROETHKE (1908–1963)
*The Rose

*JOSEPHINE MILES (1911–1985)
*West from Ithaca

*J. V. CUNNINGHAM (1911–1985)
*Montana Pastoral
From To What Strangers, What Welcome
Montana Fifty Years Ago

*KARL SHAPIRO (1913–2000)
*California Winter
Western Town
California Petrarchan

*VIRGINIA HAMILTON ADAIR (b. 1913)
*Mojave Evening
Second Coming

*WELDON KEES (1914–1955)
*Two Cities

*WILLIAM STAFFORD (1914–1998)
*At the Bomb Testing Site
The Tillamook Burn
In the Oregon Country
What Ever Happened to the Beats?
Traveling Through the Dark

*ANN STANFORD (1916–1987)
*The Four Horsemen

*CHARLES BUKOWSKI (1920–1994)
*Vegas

*LEE GERLACH (b. 1920)
*Genesis

*CHARLES FOSTER (1922–1967)
*How Everything Was in the End Resolved in California

*LOUIS SIMPSON (b. 1923)
*West
The Redwoods

*ZBIGNIEW HERBERT (1924–1998)
*Sequoia

*JOHN HAINES (b. 1924)
*Pawnee Dust
Ghost Town
Alive in the World
Men Against the Sky

*EDGAR BOWERS (1925–2000)
*Someone in San Francisco
Breakages

*DONALD JUSTICE (b. 1925)
*Henry James by the Pacific
Banjo Dog Variations

*ALAN STEPHENS (b. 1925)
*After Work: Foreword
From Water Among the Stones Along the Matilija
—XVI The End of Something
—XVII Yucca Whipplei

*DAVID WAGONER (b. 1926)
*Tumbleweed
Fire by the River

*HENRI COULETTE (1928–…