The Poems of J. V. Cunningham

About this book

The lifework in verse of one of the centurys finest and liveliest American poets this collection of the poems of J. V. Cunningham (1911-85) documents the poets development from his early days as an experimental modernist during the Depression to his emergence as the master of the classical plain styledistinguished by its wit feeling and subtlety. Often identified with the epigrama genre in which he excelled as distinctively as Jonson Herrick and LandorCunningham also wrote in a wide range of other poetic forms and was a remarkable translator. This collection designed to show the poets range and skill incorporates the materials of his 1971 Collected Poems and Epigrams and restores their original arrangement. It also adds many of his later poems and translations and some uncollected pieces from his periodicals. Timothy Steeles notes and introduction assist in re-establishing Cunninghams position as a twentieth-century original a poet who is remembered equally for emotional power and stylistic purity.