New and Selected Poems, 1957-2011

Author's Note

19 AUThOR’S NOTE Ram Dass says, “Old age is about harvesting whatever your life’s work has been.” Now in my 70’s, I don’t feel especially old, but my life’s work has been, and continues to be, poetry, and, fifty years after my first publication, this is harvest time. From the thousand or so poems I’ve written since the early 1950s, these are the ones I’d like to preserve. Because it draws on some earlier collections, Half A Life’s History: New & Selected, 1957-1983; Four Incarnations, and Heavenly Sex (among others), I have come to think of this volume as something of a ‘Collected Selected.’ However, I have included twenty or so new poems as well, among them the father-son series, Shelby the dog and others. This page intentionally left blank. New & Selected Poems 1957–2011 This page intentionally left blank. ...