ALSO BY ROBERT BLY
Poetry
Stealing Sugar from the Castle: Selected and New Poems, 1950–2013
Talking into the Ear of a Donkey
Reaching Out to the World: New and Selected Prose Poems
My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy
The Urge to Travel Long Distances
The Night Abraham Called to the Stars
The Insanity of Empire: A Book of Poems Against the Iraq War
Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems
Morning Poems
Meditations on the Insatiable Soul
What Have I Ever Lost by Dying?: Collected Prose Poems
Angels of Pompeii
(with Stephen Brigidi)
Selected Poems
Loving a Woman in Two Worlds
The Man in the Black Coat Turns
This Tree Will Be Here for a Thousand Years
Old Man Rubbing His Eyes
This Body Is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood
(illustrated by Gendron Jensen)
The Morning Glory
Jumping Out of Bed
Sleepers Joining Hands
The Light Around the Body
Silence in the Snowy Fields
Prose
The Maiden King
(with Marion Woodman)
The Sibling Society: An Impassioned Call for the Rediscovery of Adulthood
Remembering James Wright
Iron John: A Book About Men
American Poetry: Wildness and Domesticity
A Little Book on the Human Shadow
(with William Booth)
Talking All Morning
Eight Stages of Translation
COLLECTED
POEMS
ROBERT BLY
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Copyright © 2018, 2011, 2005, 2001, 1997, 1994, 1985, 1981, 1979, 1977, 1975, 1973, 1972, 1967, 1966, 1965, 1964, 1963, 1962, 1961, 1960, 1959, 1953 by Robert Bly
All rights reserved
First Edition
Silence in the Snowy Fields. © 1962 by Robert Bly. Published by Wesleyan University Press. Used by permission. Morning Poems. Copyright © 1997 by Robert Bly. Printed by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. The Night Abraham Called to the Stars. Copyright © 2001 by Robert Bly. Printed by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy. Copyright © 2005 by Robert Bly. Printed by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. Some versions of these poems that appeared originally in other volumes were revised for Jumping Out of Bed (1987) and Reaching Out to the World: New and Selected Prose Poems (2009). © 1987 and 2009 by Robert Bly. Published by White Pine Press. Reprinted with permission.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Bly, Robert, author.
Title: Collected poems / Robert Bly.
Description: First edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2018] |
Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018028547 | ISBN 9780393652444 (hardcover)
Classification: LCC PS3552.L9 A6 2018 | DDC 811/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018028547
ISBN: 978-0-39365-245-1 (ebk.)
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
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For Ruth
CONTENTS
SILENCE IN THE SNOWY FIELDS (1962)
Eleven Poems of Solitude
Three Kinds of Pleasures
Return to Solitude
Waking from Sleep
Hunting Pheasants in a Cornfield
Surprised by Evening
Thinking of Wallace Stevens on the First Snowy Day in December
Sunset at a Lake
Fall
Approaching Winter
Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River
Poem in Three Parts
Awakening
Unrest
Awakening
Poem against the Rich
Poem against the British
Where We Must Look for Help
Remembering in Oslo the Old Picture of the Magna Carta
Summer, 1960, Minnesota
With Pale Women in Maryland
Driving through Ohio
At the Funeral of Great-Aunt Mary
On the Ferry across Chesapeake Bay
A Man Writes to a Part of Himself
Depression
Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter
Getting Up Early
A Late Spring Day in My Life
Love Poem
“Taking the Hands”
Afternoon Sleep
Images Suggested by Medieval Music
Solitude Late at Night in the Woods
Watering the Horse
In a Train
Silence on the Roads
After Working
The Clear Air of October
Laziness and Silence
September Night with an Old Horse
Night
After Drinking All Night with a Friend, We Go Out in a Boat at Dawn to See Who Can Write the Best Poem
Old Boards
Late at Night during a Visit of Friends
Silence
Snowfall in the Afternoon
THE LIGHT AROUND THE BODY (1967)
I. The Two Worlds
The Executive’s Death
The Busy Man Speaks
Johnson’s Cabinet Watched by Ants
Watching Television
Smothered by the World
A Dream of Suffocation
Romans Angry about the Inner World
II. The Various Arts of Poverty and Cruelty
Come with Me
Those Being Eaten by America
Written in Dejection near Rome
Listening to President Kennedy Lie about the Cuban Invasion
The Great Society
Suddenly Turning Away
Three Presidents
Hearing Men Shout at Night on MacDougal Street
The Current Administration
Andrew Jackson’s Speech
Sleet Storm on the Merritt Parkway
III. The Vietnam War
After the Industrial Revolution, All Things Happen at Once
Asian Peace Offers Rejected without Publication
War and Silence
Counting Small-Boned Bodies
As the Asian War Begins
At a March against the Vietnam War
Hatred of Men with Black Hair
Driving through Minnesota during the Hanoi Bombings
IV. In Praise of Grief
Melancholia
Turning Away from Lies
A Home in Dark Grass
Looking at New-Fallen Snow from a Train
In Danger from the Outer World
The Fire of Despair Has Been Our Saviour
Looking at Some Flowers
V. A Body Not Yet Born
Looking into a Face
Hurrying Away from the Earth
The Hermit
Max Ernst and the Tortoise’s Beak
Moving Inward a
t Last
Riderless Horses
Evolution from the Fish
Wanting to Experience All Things
Opening an Oyster
When the Dumb Speak
SLEEPERS JOINING HANDS (1973)
I.
Six Winter Privacy Poems
The Turtle
Chinese Tomb Guardians
Shack Poem
In a Mountain Cabin in Norway
A Conversation
Tao Te Ching Running
Condition of the Working Classes: 1970
Calling to the Badger
Pilgrim Fish Heads
The Teeth Mother Naked at Last
II. Sleepers Joining Hands: A Long Poem
The Shadow Goes Away
Meeting the Man Who Warns Me
The Night Journey in the Cooking Pot
Water Drawn Up into the Head
An Extra Joyful Chorus for Those Who Have Read This Far
JUMPING OUT OF BED (1973)
Turtle Climbing from a Rock
Thinking of “The Autumn Fields”
Like the New Moon I Will Live My Life
Some November Privacy Poems
On a Moonlit Road in the North Woods
The Walnut Tree Orchards
The Hill of Hua-Tzu
Chrysanthemums
After Long Busyness
Some Images for Death
A Night in December
Sleeping Faces
The Creek by the Luan House
The Magnolia Grove
Another Doing Nothing Poem
Walking in the Ditch Grass
Tongues Whirling
A Doing Nothing Poem
Jumping Out of Bed
The Poem
Looking at Cloud Banks below the Plane Window
THE MORNING GLORY (1975)
I.
A Bird’s Nest Made of White Reed Fiber
Leonardo’s Secret
Looking at a Dead Wren in My Hand
Sitting on Some Rocks in Shaw Cove
At a Fish Hatchery in Story, Wyoming
An Octopus
A Hollow Tree
Looking into a Tide Pool
Seeing Creeley for the First Time
The Hockey Poem
Walking on the Sussex Coast
A Turtle
Frost on the Windowpane
Looking at a Dry Tumbleweed Brought In from the Snow
Watching Andrei Voznesensky Read in Vancouver
Standing under a Cherry Tree at Night
Two Prose Poems on Locked-In Animals
1.Lobsters Waiting to Be Eaten in a Restaurant Window
2.Bored Elephants in the Circus Stable
Waterfall Coming over a Cliff
In the Courtyard of the Isleta Mission
A Poem about Tennessee
The Black Crab Demon
A Rock Islet on the Pacific
II. The Point Reyes Poems
November Day at McClure’s Beach
Welcoming a Child in the Limantour Dunes
Trespassing on the Pierce Ranch
Climbing Up Mount Vision with My Little Boy
An Excursion on Tomales Bay
Calm Morning at Drake’s Bay
Finding a Salamander on Inverness Ridge
Seawater Pouring Back over Stones
The Dead Seal near McClure’s Beach
The Large Starfish
III.
Going in a Helicopter from Riverside to the L.A. Airport
The Porcupine in the Wind
Visiting Thomas Hart Benton and His Wife in Kansas City
Walking in the Hardangervidda
Rendezvous at an Abandoned Farm
A Caterpillar
Morning by the Lake
August Rain
Grass from Two Years
Christmas Eve Service at Midnight at St. Michael’s
Opening the Door of a Barn I Thought Was Empty on New Year’s Eve
THIS BODY IS MADE OF CAMPHOR AND GOPHERWOOD (1977)
Walking Swiftly
A Day Alone
The Sleeper
Finding the Father
The Owlets at Nightfall
Going Out to Check the Ewes
Galloping Horses
A Dream of What Is Missing
The Old Man with Missing Fingers
Walking to the Next Farm
The Lover’s Body as a Community of Protozoa
Coming In for Supper
How the Ant Takes Part
When the Wheel Does Not Move
Two Days on the Farm
The Orchard Keeper
We Love This Body
Wings Folding Up
Snowed In Again
The Cry Going Out over Pastures
THIS TREE WILL BE HERE FOR A THOUSAND YEARS (1979)
I.
October Frost
Writing Again
The Yearly Failure
Sitting in Fall Grass
Night Farmyard
Dawn in Threshing Time
Reading in Fall Rain
Ocean Insects
To Live or Not
Cornpicker Poem
Prophets
Listening to a Cricket in the Wainscoting
Thinking of Tu Fu’s Poem
Digging Worms
Walking and Sitting
A Long Walk before the Snows Began
A Dream on the Night of First Snow
A Walk
For My Brother, a Year after His Death
Passing a Spanish Orchard by Train
II.
Women We Never See Again
Fear for the Bridal Pair
Ant Heaps by the Path
The Artist
Pulling a Rowboat Up among Lake Reeds
Moving Books to a New Study
Driving My Parents Home at Christmas
After a Day of Work
Walking Where the Plows Have Been Turning
July Morning
An Empty Place
Prayer Service at an English Church
Fishing on a Lake at Night
Night of First Snow
Moses’ Basket
The Crow’s Head
Frost Still on the Ground
Late Moon
A Dream of Retarded Children
The Seven Stars of the Great Bear
The Tree Knocked Down by Lightning
Dream of an Afternoon with a Woman I Did Not Know
Nailing a Dock Together
An Evening When the Full Moon Rose as the Sun Set
Out Picking Up Corn
THE MAN IN THE BLACK COAT TURNS (1981)
I.
Snowbanks North of the House
For My Son Noah, Ten Years Old
The Prodigal Son
The Convict and His Radio
Mourning Pablo Neruda
II.
Eleven O’Clock at Night
The Winemaker and the Captain
The Dried Sturgeon
A Bouquet of Ten Roses
Visiting Emily Dickinson’s Grave with Robert Francis
Finding an Old Ant Mansion
III.
The Grief of Men
Kennedy’s Inauguration
Written at Mule Hollow, Utah
The Bear’s Tail
Words Rising
A Sacrifice in the Orchard
My Wife’s Painting
My Father’s Wedding
Four Ways of Knowledge
Fifty Men Sitting Together
Crazy Carlson’s Meadow
Kneeling Down to Look into a Culvert
LOVING A WOMAN IN TWO WORLDS (1985)
I.
The Indigo Bunting
“Out of the Rolling Ocean, the Crowd . . .”
The Whole Moisty Night
Secrets
Letter to H
er
Two People at Dawn
Winter Poem
In Rainy September
The Third Body
Two Middle-Aged Lovers
Finding Sharks’ Teeth in a Rock
II.
The Roots
What Frightened Us
Seeing You Carry Plants In
The Two Rivers
Come with Me
At Midocean
In the Time of Peony Blossoming
Night Frogs
The March Buds
The Turtle
Such Different Wants
Ferns
The Hummingbird Valley
Love Poem in Twos and Threes
Returning Poem
The Ram
Night Winds
Alone a Few Hours
The Moose
Mountain Grass
What We Provide
Poem on Sleep
The Artist at Fifty
Words Barely Heard
The Conditions
A Man and a Woman and a Blackbird
III.
The Minnow Turning
Firmness
Conversation
Shame
The Horse of Desire
Listening to the Köln Concert
Conversation with a Holy Woman Not Seen for Many Years
What Moves and Doesn’t Move
The Heron Drinking
The Good Silence
The Hawk
In the Month of May
MEDITATIONS ON THE INSATIABLE SOUL (1994)
I.
Men and Women
Waiting for the Stars
The Man Who Walks toward Us
The Chinese Peaks
Letter to James Wright
Wallace Stevens and Florence
On the Oregon Coast
When William Stafford Died
Thomas and the Codfish’s Psalm
Honoring Sand
Gratitude to Old Teachers
Thoughts in the Cabin
II.
Visiting My Father
1.
2. My Father at Eighty-Six
3. The Hard Breathing
4. Something Has Come
5. The Komodo Dragon
6. The Pharaoh’s Servant
7. Prayer for My Father
Dream of Myself at Twelve
In the Funeral Home
A Dream of the Blacksmith’s Room
III.
Meditations on the Insatiable Soul
Anger against Children
IV.
St. George, the Dragon, and the Virgin