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Ursula K. Le Guin: Collected Poems (LOA #368)

Author Ursula K. Le Guin
Edited by Harold Bloom
$40.00 US
The Library of America | Library of America
18 per carton
On sale Apr 04, 2023 | 9781598537369
Sales rights: US/CAN (No Open Mkt)
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At last, a major American poet collected for the first time in the sixth volume of the definitive Library of Edition of her works

STARRED REVIEW IN PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Ursula K. Le Guin’s career began and ended with poetry. This sixth volume in the definitive Library of America edition of her works gathers, for the first time, her collected poems—from her earliest collection Wild Angels (1974) through her final publication, the collection So Far So Good, which she delivered to her editor just a week before her death in 2018.

The themes explored in the poems gathered here resonate through all Le Guin’s oeuvre, but find their strongest voice in her poetry: exploration as a metaphor for both human bravery and creativity, the mystery and fragility of nature and the impact of humankind on their environment, the Tao Te Ching, marriage, womanhood, and even cats. Le Guin’s poetry is often traditional in form but never in style: her verse is earthy, surprising, and lyrical. 

Including some 40 poems never before collected, this volume restores to print much of Le Guin's remarkable verse. It features a new introduction  by editor Harold Bloom, written before his death in 2019, in which he reflects on the power of Le Guin’s poems, which he calls “American originals.” It also features helpful explanatory notes and a chronology of Le Guin’s life.
Read at the Award Dinner, May 1996

Beware when you honor an artist.
You are praising danger.
You are holding out your hand
to the dead and the unborn.
You are counting on what cannot be counted.


The poet’s measures serve anarchic joy.
The story-teller tells one story: freedom.


Above all beware of honoring women artists.
For the housewife will fill the house with lions
and in with the grandmother
come bears, wild horses, great horned owls, coyotes.



(The Award dinner was when Le Guin was presented with a Retrospective James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award for The Left Hand of Darkness.)


Anonyma
When the great lordly singers hush,
my casual and selfless voice
that takes no profit, makes no choice,
pipes up, indifferent as a thrush.


When brazen monuments corrode
and praise is dust in dust with blame
and dateless night hides every name,
I still go lilting down the road.


It’s sad that hopes and poets die,
but my dear task and fondest care
is to bear softly what’s to bear
and ever to sing the lullabye.
Copyright © 2023 by The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
"This imaginative and insightful collection is a worthy tribute to the poetic life’s work of an important American writer." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

About

At last, a major American poet collected for the first time in the sixth volume of the definitive Library of Edition of her works

STARRED REVIEW IN PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Ursula K. Le Guin’s career began and ended with poetry. This sixth volume in the definitive Library of America edition of her works gathers, for the first time, her collected poems—from her earliest collection Wild Angels (1974) through her final publication, the collection So Far So Good, which she delivered to her editor just a week before her death in 2018.

The themes explored in the poems gathered here resonate through all Le Guin’s oeuvre, but find their strongest voice in her poetry: exploration as a metaphor for both human bravery and creativity, the mystery and fragility of nature and the impact of humankind on their environment, the Tao Te Ching, marriage, womanhood, and even cats. Le Guin’s poetry is often traditional in form but never in style: her verse is earthy, surprising, and lyrical. 

Including some 40 poems never before collected, this volume restores to print much of Le Guin's remarkable verse. It features a new introduction  by editor Harold Bloom, written before his death in 2019, in which he reflects on the power of Le Guin’s poems, which he calls “American originals.” It also features helpful explanatory notes and a chronology of Le Guin’s life.

Excerpt

Read at the Award Dinner, May 1996

Beware when you honor an artist.
You are praising danger.
You are holding out your hand
to the dead and the unborn.
You are counting on what cannot be counted.


The poet’s measures serve anarchic joy.
The story-teller tells one story: freedom.


Above all beware of honoring women artists.
For the housewife will fill the house with lions
and in with the grandmother
come bears, wild horses, great horned owls, coyotes.



(The Award dinner was when Le Guin was presented with a Retrospective James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award for The Left Hand of Darkness.)


Anonyma
When the great lordly singers hush,
my casual and selfless voice
that takes no profit, makes no choice,
pipes up, indifferent as a thrush.


When brazen monuments corrode
and praise is dust in dust with blame
and dateless night hides every name,
I still go lilting down the road.


It’s sad that hopes and poets die,
but my dear task and fondest care
is to bear softly what’s to bear
and ever to sing the lullabye.
Copyright © 2023 by The Ursula K. Le Guin Literary Trust. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Praise

"This imaginative and insightful collection is a worthy tribute to the poetic life’s work of an important American writer." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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