Selected Poems

In Selected Poems, we experience the full range of James Schuyler’s achievement, confirming that he was among the late twentieth century’s truly vital and distinctive poetic voices. One of the most significant writers of the New York School—which unofficially included John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, and Kenneth Koch, among others—Schuyler was strongly influenced by both art and music in his work, often incorporating rapid shifts in sound, shape, and color within his poems that almost gave his work the effect of a collage and engendered comparisons with Whitman and Rimbaud.

Praise

"Schuyler's Selected Poems includes over 100 poems, spanning the breadth of his distinguished career as a writer. At his best, Schuyler manages to be simultaneously particular and expansive, zooming in on the smallest detail and panning the big picture at the same time. Though his discursiveness may not be to every reader's taste, his is a unique voice. Not many of his contemporaries are attempting 48-page poems, as Schuyler does in the 'Morning of the Poem.' His generous spirit and quirky humor are apparent throughout this collection."—Grace Bauer, formerly with New Orleans Public Library, Library Journal

About the Author(s)

James Schuyler

James Schuyler (1923–91) received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for The Morning of the Poem in 1981.