For decades Carruth has been admired by other writers for his use of varied forms and styles, and, as did Frost before him, he has won the loyalty of many readers with his keen observations of language and the everyday. This extensive collection ranges widely, from Hayden Carruth's early 1950s traditional works to his later anti-war poems; from his sensual explorations to more narrative works. Carruth includes what others might discard as ugly, and speaks quietly where others might bombast. It is this quality that makes Carruth a talented poet, unique voice and subtle critic. Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991 won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992.


From Library Journal
From a poet who has "earn[ed] the unqualified admiration of both [his] academic and experimental peers" (LJ 4/1/92), a sampling of a half century of work.-- the unqualified admiration of both [his] academic and experimental peers" (LJ 4/1/92), a sampling of a half century of work.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review
Something Hayden Carruth does as well as any living writer is to treat the reader as a friend, and to provide, through his poetry, hours of good company.


Book Description
Collected Shorter Poems presents hundreds of lyric, short narrative, comic, meditative, nature, and erotic poems that Hayden Carruth wrote over a forty-five year period. This is a reissue of the book, with new cover design. Noted for the breadth of his linguistic and formal resources, influenced by jazz and the blues, Carruth gives his poems a philosophical resonance. His explorations of rural poverty and hardship— sometimes grim, sometimes funny—are deeply informed by political radicalism and cultural responsibility.


About the Author
Hayden Carruth, a long-time resident of Vermont, now lives in upstate New York, where he taught for many years in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University. He has published twenty-three books of poetry, a novel, four books of criticism, and two anthologies. Carruth won the 1996 National Book Award for Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey, and his Collected Shorter Poems: 1946–1991 received the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has been the editor of Poetry, poetry editor of Harper’s, and for twenty-five years an advisory editor of The Hudson Review. The Bollingen, Guggenheim, and Lannan Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts, have awarded fellowships to Carruth, and he has been presented with the Lenore Marshall/The Nation Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Vermont Governor’s Medal, the Carl Sandburg Award, the Whiting Award, and the Ruth Lily Prize.


Excerpted from Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991 by Hayden Carruth. Copyright © 1992. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Cows at Night The moon was like a full cup tonight, too heavy, and sank in the mist soon after dark, leaving for light faint stars and the silver leaves of milkweed beside the road, gleaming before my car. Yet I like driving at night in summer and in Vermont: the brown road through the mist of mountain-dark, among farms so quiet, and the roadside willows opening out where I saw the cows. Always a shock to remember them there, those great breathings close in the dark. I stopped, and took my flashlight to the pasture fence. They turned to me where they lay, sad and beautiful faces in the dark, and I counted them--forty near and far in the pasture, turning to me, sad and beautiful like girls very long ago who were innocent, and sad because they were innocent, and beautiful because they were sad. I switched off my light. But I did not want to go, not yet, nor knew what to do if I should stay, for how in that great darkness could I explain anything, anything at all.I stood by the fence. And then very gently it began to rain.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Collected Shorter Poems, 1946-1991 presents all the lyric, short narrative, comic, meditative, nature, and erotic poetry the poet has chosen from the past forty-five years, including a section of new poems not found in his previous twenty-two books. It is an extraordinary literary event. Hayden Carruth has been one of the most widely published and admired American poets for many years. Noted for the breadth of his linguistic and formal resources, influenced by jazz and the blues, Carruth gives his poems--whether sexual political, or narrative--a philosophical resonance that raises them beyond the ego-centered narrowness of much contemporary writing and makes them powerfully moving. Carruth is a New Englander (now living in New York), and many of his best-known poems are about the people and places of northern Vermont. His explorations of rural poverty and hardship, sometimes grim, sometimes funny, are deeply informed by political radicalism and cultural responsibility. Carruth has been editor of Poetry, poetry editor of Harper's, for many years advisory editor of The Hudson Review, and his influential anthology, The Voice That Is Great Within Us, is the standard collection of 20th-century American poetry. He has published one novel and three collections of essays. He has been awarded fellowships by the Guggenheim Foundation, the Bollingen Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (including a 1988 Senior Fellowship), and his work has won many prizes and awards, including the Lenore Marshall/Nation Poetry Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the Governor's Medal from the State of Vermont.


About the Author

Hayden Carruth, a long-time resident of Vermont, now lives in upstate New York, where he taught for many years in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University. He has published twenty-three books of poetry, a novel, four books of criticism, and two anthologies. Carruth won the 1996 National Book Award for Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey, and his Collected Shorter Poems: 1946-1991 received the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has been the editor of Poetry, poetry editor of Harper's, and for twenty-five years an advisory editor of The Hudson Review. The Bollingen, Guggenheim, and Lannan Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts, have awarded fellowships to Carruth, and he has been presented with the Lenore Marshall/The Nation Award, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Vermont Governor's Medal, the Carl Sandburg Award, the Whiting Award, and the Ruth Lily Prize.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

...such titles as "A Little Old Funky Homeric Blues for Herm" and "Asphalt Georgics" signal Carruth's gradual attraction to the vernacular, the eventual embrace of which in his formal measures has resulted in some fine poems

Library Journal