Product Description
An event of rare literary distinction, this book records the conjunction between two distinguished American poets, illuminating not only their work and their connection but also the deep strain of pantheistic mysticism in the American tradition. In 1934, William Everson came across a volume of Jeffers's poetry. In Everson's word, the power of Jeffers 'broke my own acquired agnosticism and compelled me to think of myself as a manifestly religious man. It is a power I still attest to in writing this study, a power which I continue to think of as an undiluted religious force'. It was after reading Jeffers that Everson's vocation as a poet emerged, and though they never met or corresponded, Everson has remained loyal and dedicated to Jeffers throughout his life. Everson, who published extensively under his religious name Brother Antoninus during his nearly twenty years as a Dominican lay brother, has become one of the most knowledgeable scholars and critics of Jeffers, as well as his one avowed poetic disciple. This book is written as a series of over-lapping and ever-widening meditations on Jeffers's sense of God, nature, the self, and language.The meditations take as text and illustration passages from Jeffers's poetry, passages that evidence 'the omnipresence of religious feeling that floods his verse,' and that form a unique collection of some of Jeffers's most profound work.< ... Read more

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Old Age Is Not for Sissies
This was Jeffers' last book of poems, which are more candid, with a narrative feel. As if he were talking to you directly about these feelings. His pacifism is central, while his disgust with mankind takes on the colour of modern resignation to the inevitable. He mourns, as always. He depicts himself as a ghost, anxiously observing how his Tor House is being maintained.

I understand Jeffers. I've not been in a position to purchase a lot of good art, but when I consider art worth owning, I want lush landscapes with no trace of people to be found in the picture.

Any volume of Jeffers' poetry is to be highly valued, and this one is no exception. ... Read more

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This final volume of the first comprehensive edition ofall of Robinson Jeffers’s completed poems, both published andunpublished, consists of commentary: various procedural explanationsand textual evidence for the edition’s texts, transcriptions ofworking notes for the poems and of alternate and discarded passages, achronology of Jeffers’s career, appendixes, and indexes. ... Read more

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Then as Now
The Selected Poetry Of Robinson JeffersWhen I was a college student at the University of Iowa Writer's workshop, we studied Robinson Jeffers as the voice of the future.I loved these poems with all my heart and wished that I could somehow write what I saw in this prophetic and beautiful way.What we have in Robinson Jeffers is a poet, who not only could envision the future, but one who could take all the nature around him and make you long for his earth, his sky, his water.Do we have a poet these days who is as unafraid to confront the real issues of our time in the same way.We need such poets desperately.I hope all who want to look at this beautiful earth and preserve it will revisit this man's poetry.In it they will find solace, freedom and occasionally honest joy, and they will also see why they need to look around them, find what they can do to help, and DO IT! ... Read more

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The Cliffs of Solitude offers a comprehensive assessment of the career of one of America's most neglected major poets, Robinson Jeffers. Jeffers' reputation, once one of the most substantial in American letters, was founded chiefly on the publication of 'Tamar' (1924) and the other verse narratives of the California coast that followed it in the next two decades. Most previous studies have cast no more than a backward glance at the considerable body of work that preceded 'Tamar', much of which was presumed to be lost. The recent recovery of major portions of Jeffers' verse drama 'The Alpine Christ', however, as well as a significant quantity of other early material, compels reassessment of this phase of his career and casts the mature poetry in a radically altered light. Such an attempt is particularly timely now that the rhetoric of modernist criticism, which tended for so long to obscure the scope and importance of Jeffers' achievement, has itself receded into the historical record. ... Read more

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The Bedside Jeffers Reader
This is one of my favorite explications of Jeffers' poetry out there. It delves into an essential facet of the poet's philosophy that sometimes is overlooked in the violence and political bombast, his spirituality. In the same vein as William Everson (Brother Antoninus), Beilke rightly portrays Jeffers as a deeply religious poet who goes through many transformations of feeling about the concept of God. He contends that although God's nature stays relatively immutable, the harshness and states of consciousness God goes through are affected by the times, especially during war. Of course this is all subjective and relative to Jeffers's "pantheism" and so his God is more a subjective figure moreso than an enfleshed Godhead, but God nonetheless.

Beilke's work may not be seen as groundbreaking in that it only expounds upon the rudimentary functions of religion and spirituality in the poet's work. But his brevity and concise summarizations painted alongside the actual poetic texts make for an enthralling read. It doesn't wax deeply into the author's psyche more than it does into Jeffers's, which befalls so many authors of the genre, and comes across as a labor of love instead of a peg in a scholarly pedigree. What I mean is that it doesn't fudge in the author's own predilections towards art, but rather expounds upon the author at hand, which is the important thing in my mind.

The setup and actual construction of the book(it's thick and large note card wide) is a bit awkward and gives it an almost scrapbook/journal like appearance and feel, but it is only displeasing until one encounters rare photos of Jeffers and other ephemerally enticing treasures. It is a bit pricey as far as criticism goes, even though I got it for $20, but I wouldn't sell mine off under market value. In fact I wouldn't sell mine period.
... Read more

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SHEPHERDS OF PAN ON THE BIG SUR-MONTEREY COAST is a medley of lively, literate essays about the Nature wisdom linking some unlikely bedfellows: Robert Louis Stevenson, Gertrude Atherton, Jack London, Robinson Jeffers, Jaime de Angulo, John Steinbeck, Eric Barker, D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller and others, with a pertinent postscript on William James, father of American psychology. All these luminaries came to perceive divinity in the awesome, double-dealing power of Nature, symbolized by the Greek god Pan. Many became pantheists, or nature mystics, under the spell of the alternately soft and violent landscape of California´s central coast. The book is a multicolored meditation on a deeply rooted -- and often overlooked -- human need to reconnect with Nature, wellspring of our inner joy and psychic wholeness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Ars Oratoria
Let there be no mistaking that I believe that any undertaking to expose Jeffers's poetry to a larger audience, albeit mostly unappreciative, is a good thing. That said, I don't think Haas is/was the proper guide to lead this excursion. First off, he is an apologist for the mainstream critics (Vendler, Rexroth, Yvor Winters) who constantly harp on the fact that Jeffers was too steadfast, didactic and violent in his efforts. Unlike his contemporaries of the time, Pound and Eliot, Jeffers remained enmeshed in the natural (although politically charged) realm while they toiled away in the urban malaise. Jeffers is accused of everything from being a Fascist to a misanthropic beast living in savage recluse in his unhuman retreat. But nothing is ever taken to heart concerning Eliot or Pound's anti-semitism or their turning into obscure (The Cantos)and banal(That god-awful book about cats by Eliot) poetasters in their twilight periods. Jeffers remained powerful, humane and consistent with the healing values of his Inhumanist credo. Haas is no mirror to these effects and he states this fact by repudiating his middle period as blase for the whole canon and especially powerful first volumes(I'm negating "Californians" and "Flagons & Apples" as a general rule.). To measure Jeffers by "Roan Stallion" and "Tamar" and the early lyrics is to always place him at a disadvantage concerning his later works. Those afforementioned and immortal works are beyond the modern scope because they transcend modernism by being timeless (that which the critics would call relics) and untraceable to a time period. To me it is short-sightedness which accosts a writer for being thorough in representing his philosophy in meticulous and reasserting terms. You have to consider his entire body of work as a whole and in doing so any objective enthusiast of poetry cannot contest Jeffers's stature as a literary and poetic giant. In my estimation he has no contemporaries.

That said, I cannot contest the selection of the poetry, considering the fact that Haas as an editor is/was expected to showcase a variety of the short poems from all stages of the poet's career. There are obvious subjective tastes in choosing favorites so I won't criticize that aspect. That and the book is a beautiful collector's piece and will leave new readers of Jeffers wanting more and more of his work and that can never be a bad thing. A bit pricey due to its rarity and incomplete in that his short "lyrics" are numerous, but a must-have for enthusiasts.

An excellent collection of shorter works
This is an excellent way to begin reading Jeffers. Contains the poem "Self-Criticism in February", a great self-explication of his own struggles with poetry.

This is a satisfying introduction to the poetry of Jeffers.
The poem "Tor House" epitomizes Robinson Jeffers' poetry. The introduction of the book gives an idea of the personalities of Una and Robinson Jeffers. This book contains the poem "The Roan Stallion" that began Jeffers' fame ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A High Standard for Bibliographic Scholarship
I have frequent recourse to this bibliography, and value its succinct, astringent, and judicious annotations.But it is in its thoroughness that the book's true glory lies.I often come across a reference to acontemporary review, or an out-of-the-way article or chapter on Jeffersthat I've never heard of, and think to myself, "This is such arecondite reference, surely Vardamis missed it . . . "But almostwithout exception I find the reference in this excellent work.This hashappened twice in recent months, and many other times over the years.Andwhenever it happens, I am struck anew by the very high standardthe authorhas set for works of this kind. ... Read more