An anthology that explores the power and beauty of rivers through poems from around the world and through the ages. AN EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY POCKET POET.
Rivers were the arteries of our first civilizations--the Tigris and Euphrates of Mesopotamia, India's Ganges, Egypt's Nile, the Yellow River of China--and have nourished modern cities from London to New York, so it's natural that poets have for centuries drawn essential meanings and metaphors from their endless currents.
In this collection, British poets from Shakespeare and Wordsworth to Ted Hughes and Alice Oswald mingle with American voices ranging from verses by the indigenous Klallam people and the African-American spirituals "Deep River" and "Roll, Jordan, Roll" to such recent poets as Gary Snyder, Mary Oliver, and Natasha Tretheway. Walt Whitman's iconic "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry and Emily Dickinson's tersely erotic "My River Runs to Thee stream alongside poems from ancient Babylon and Egypt. Contributions from India, Nepal, Japan, China, Thailand, France, Germany, Russia, Serbia, Chile, Mexico, the Congo, and Nigeria round out this celebration of the rivers of the world.
Includes:
- "My River Runs to Thee by Emily Dickinson
- "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes
- "Ol' Man River" by Oscar Hammerstein II
- "The Golden Boat" by Rabindranath Tagore
- "The River God" by Stevie Smith
- "The River Bends but the Water Does Not" by Buddhādasa Bhikkhu
- "The Niagara River" by Kay Ryan
- "Amazon" by Pablo Neruda
Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
Table of Contents:
CONTENTS
HEADWATERS
Hymn to the Nile
Ezekiel 47:9
LAOZI From Dao De Jin
WANG WEI Cormorant Bank From Gold Dust Spring
DAFYDD LLWYD OF MATHAFARN From To The River Dyfi
ALEXANDER POPE From Windsor Forest
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE To the River Otter
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON First Fountain
TRADITIONAL ENGLISH SONG The Waters of Tyne
TRADITIONAL AMERICAN SONG Shenandoah
RALPH WALDO EMERSON The River
HENRY DAVID THOREAU From The Journal
CARL SANDBURG Languages
PABLO NERUDA Amazon
TED HUGHES River
VASKO POPA Great Lord Danube
GABRIEL OKARA The Call of the River Nun
JIM HARRISON River III
RICHARD HUGO Beaverbank
DAVID WAGONER Talking to Barr Creek
DUANE NIATUM Evening Near the Hoko River
CHARLES WRIGHT Cloud River
Rapids & Pools
WANG WEI Luan Family Rapids
HENRY VAUGHAN The Water-Fall
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON Could Love
EDGAR ALLAN POE To the River
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON From The Brook
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Looking-Glass River
THOMAS HARDY The Something that Saved Him
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS Inversnaid
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Stream and Sun at Glendalough
IVAN BUNIN With the Current
NIKOLAUS LENAU Look into the Stream
ROBERT FROST Too Anxious for Rivers
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS River Rhyme
ANNE RIDLER River God's Song
TED HUGHES Low Water
WILLIAM STAFFORD Looking Across the River
DIANE WAKOSKI The Canoer
KAY RYAN The Niagara River
GARY SNYDER The Canyon Wren
DON MCKAY Pool
GEFFREY DAVIS Upriver, Downstream
JOHN SIBLEY WILLIAMS Suture
DONOVAN DOUGLAS Haskin's Creek, August, As Revival
TRINITY HERR Topography
NATASHA TRETHEWEY Elegy
RAYMOND CARVER Simple
Freeze, Flow & Flood
FUJIWARA NO SADAYORI Winter Dawn, Uji River
JOHN DRYDEN London After the Great Fire, 1666
EDMUND SPENSER From Prothalamion
HENRY DAVID THOREAU From The Journal
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW From To the River Charles
WALT WHITMAN From Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
SIDNEY LANIER The Song of the Chattahoochee
RUDYARD KIPLING The River's Tale
THOMAS HARDY Overlooking the River Stour
KENJI MIYAZAWA Along that Frozen Little River
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS Down by the Salley Gardens
T.S. ELIOT From The Dry Salvages
W.H. AUDEN River Profile
A.R. AMMONS River
JAMES WRIGHT To Flood Stage Again
WILLIAM STAFFORD Ask Me
HAYDEN CARRUTH The Water
DON MCKAY Night Skating on the Little Paddle River
JAMES DICKEY Inside the River
SHUNTARO TANIKAWA From The River
WENDELL BERRY The River Voyagers
LOUIS GLÜCK Early December in Croton-on-Hudson
LOUISE ERDRICH I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move
KAREN HOULE Pleasure Craft
ALICE OSWALD Birdwatcher
EMILY ROSKO Flood Plain
Troubled Waters
From The Epic of Gilgamesh
WILLIAM BLAKE Why Should I care for the Men of Thames
JÓNAS HALLGRÍMSSON The Sog, Iceland
WALT WHITMAN Cavalry Crossing a Ford
ERNST STADLER Ride Over the Cologne Rhine Bridge at Night
WILFRED OWEN Shadwell Stair
LOUIS MACNEICE Charon
EUGENIO MONTALE Near Capua
RABINDRANATH TAGORE The Golden Boat
PAUL DRESSER On The Banks of the Wabash, Far Away
H.D. Leda
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS From Paterson
OSCAR HAMMERSTEIN II From Ol' Man River
CONSTANCE URDANG The River
STEVIE SMITH The River God
TED HUGHES Ophelia
JAMES WRIGHT In Response to a Rumor that the Oldest Whorehouse in Wheeling,
West Virginia, Has Been Condemned
CITTADHAR HṚDAYA River
WILLIAM MEREDITH At the Confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado
CHARLES BUKOWSKI The Rivers
TSITSI ELLA JAJI Limpopo Blues
JAMES GALVIN Cache la Poudre
JORGE HUMBERTO CHÁVEZ The River
TRACY SMITH Wade in the Water
TODD DAVIS Poem Made from Sadness and Water
KIT EVANS Riverbed Blues
Meditations & Meanderings
LAOZI From Dao De Jin
DU FU Thoughts on Traveling By Night
KOBAYASHI ISSA Cricket Singing
UEJIMA ONITSURA Below the Jumping Sweetfish
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Upon Westminster Bridge
OSCAR WILDE Symphony in Yellow
MARCEL PROUST The Carafes of the Vivonne
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE Mirabeau Bridge
WALLACE STEVENS The River of Rivers in Connecticut
LANGSTON HUGHES The Negro Speaks of Rivers
BUDDHĀDASA BHIKKHU The River Bends But the Water Does Not
PAULINE STAINER Pouring the Sand Mandala into the Thames
SYLVIA PLATH Faun
ROBERT BLY Driving Toward the Lac Qui Parle River
GRACE PALEY Suddenly There's Poughkeepsie
JAMES REANEY To the Avon River, Above Stratford, Canada
GARY SNYDER River in the Valley
EAVAN BOLAND Anna Liffey
MARY OLIVER At Black River
SAM HAMILL A Snapshot of Susitna
ALICE OSWALD From Dart
TCHICAYA U TAM'SI Brush Fire
TODD DAVIS Gnosis
PAULA BOHINCE La Seine
Deltas
ZHANG RUOXU Moonlight on the Spring River
MATSUO BASHO Mogami River
Hot Summer Day
EMILY DICKINSON My River Runs to Thee
Least Rivers
WILLIAM GIBSON From The River Columbia
ALICE MEYNELL The Visiting Sea
VALERY BRYUSOV To Myself
HART CRANE Repose of Rivers
CARL SANDBURG River Moons
MARINA TSVETAEVA From The Notebook
ROBINSON JEFFERS Salmon-Fishing
RUTH PITTER The Estuary
EUGENIO MONTALE Delta
THEODORE ROETHKE River Incident
SHUNTARO TANIKAWA River
JAMES DICKEY Awaiting the Swimmer
RAYMOND CARVER Where Water Comes Together with Other Water
DAVID BOTTOMS In a Jon Boat During a Florida Dawn
JOHN SIBLEY WILLIAMS Sediment
BRUCE BOND The Delta
SCOTT STARBUCK The Hunger
HENRY HUGHES is a poet, essayist, and professor of English at Western Oregon University. A winner of the Oregon Book Award, he is also the editor of the Everyman's Library collections The Art of Angling: Poems about Fishing and Fishing Stories.
Everyman's Library
Pub Date: October 04, 2022
0.8" H x 6.8" L x 4.7" W
256 pages
hardcover