Selected Poems

When John Crowe Ransom’s Selected Poems was given the 1964 National Book Award in Poetry, the citation “John Crowe Ransom is a poet whose unmistakable voice -- ironic, wayward, gentle and infallibly human -- has registered itself for many years in poetry that is an ornament to American letters. His Selected Poems may be compared, in number, to the poems of Andrew Marvell, and are likely to be as imperishable.” This third edition contains poems from Ransom’s earlier volumes, Poems about God, Chills and Fever, and Two Gentlemen in Bonds, which he has revised and added to this collection. The final section is made up of eight “pairings” -- original texts of poems side by side with later revisions. In each instance Ransom provides an informal commentary, pinpointing his dissatisfaction with the old version and analyzing the creative impulse (and technical means) that shaped the new -- an unusual revelation of the poet at work. This is an invaluable, indeed unique, collection by a distinguished poet who has long occupied an important place in contemporary American poetry. John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974) was an educator, scholar, literary critic, poet, essayist and editor. He is considered to be a founder of the New Criticism and as a faculty member at Kenyon College, he was the first editor of the widely regarded Kenyon Review. Highly respected as a teacher and mentor to a generation of accomplished students, he also was a prize-winning poet and essayist.