Field Guide
Published on 14. January 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
96 pages
978-0-300-24633-9 (ISBN)
Description
The first collection of poems by Robert Hass, one of contemporary American poetry's most celebrated and widely read voices, and the 68th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets
The winning volume in the 1972 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is a collection of richly anecdotal, lyric poems. Robert Hass writes about the California coast, about birds, fish, books, friends, present sensations, and the impingements of the past upon the present. Running through the book is a core of love poems, mainly domestic, which muse on the natural order that the affections try to establish even within the wilderness of history and political violence.
The winning volume in the 1972 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is a collection of richly anecdotal, lyric poems. Robert Hass writes about the California coast, about birds, fish, books, friends, present sensations, and the impingements of the past upon the present. Running through the book is a core of love poems, mainly domestic, which muse on the natural order that the affections try to establish even within the wilderness of history and political violence.
Reviews / Votes
"Twenty-five years ago Hass was writing the poems in his first book, Field Guide (1973), which displayed the mildness of his wit and the inclusiveness of his curiosity along with the firmness of his indignation-a book that embodied the sort of sauna gladness that comes after cleansing sweat. It was as impressive a first collection as any of its decade."-Peter Davison, Atlantic Monthly"Robert Hass's Field Guide is an impressive first collection, whether one is looking for a poet who develops a new track or one who proves his skill along older routes. Without many contradictions in tone or method, Hass appears to do both. Reminiscent in his sharply detailed lists of the purist Imagists, Hass can just as deftly move from image to the statement of the experience which crystallizes the happening for the reader. . . . Field Guide as a collection also has integrity. The poems in the three selections fit well together; they are arranged, as the title suggests, to provide a map, to both natural phenomena and human experience."-Ontario Review (on earlier edition)
Included in the Notable Books List for 1973 from the American Library Association
"Usually the first book of a poet is just a groping for his identity and means of expression. Robert Hass should consider himself lucky, for his first volume set the tone and basic subjects of his consequent oeuvre. In Field Guide he is already what he was to become: a major poet endowed with an infallible ear for a line of verse, a master of sensuous and realistic images of California and our mores in this century."-Czeslaw Milosz
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 209 mm
Width: 142 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
122 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-24633-9 (9780300246339)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Robert Hass is a professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley and former poet laureate of the United States. An award-winning author, his other books of poetry include Time and Materials, Sun Under Wood, and Praise. His books of essays include Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry.