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Honored, during the course of her literary career, with almost every major poetry award, Louise Bogan (1898-1970) was the poetry critic for The New Yorker for nearly forty years. The Blue Estuaries contains her five previous books of verse along with a section of uncollected work, fully representing a unique and distinguished contribution to modern poetry over five decades.
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Customer Reviews (2)

A Major American Poet
This short book contains every poem that Bogan wished preserved,This is less than 130 short lyrics, some of them only a single stanza, the longest only about 3 pages.Bogan's output seems to be inversely related to the intensity of her work.After reading one of these poems, its hard to imagine that they could have been written any other way.You get the sense that altering a single word would be disfiguring. Some are a bit obscure but definitely repay careful reading.Several poems have great power and many others contain striking language.Bogan deserves to be more widely read.

Every word is a workhorse in Bogan's compact, elegant lyrics
All her life, Louise Bogan exerted almost complete control over which of her poems were published and which were not.Her habit with each of her books, beginning with the Body of This Death (1923), was to exclude any previously published poems which no longer met her standards.Thus, Body of This Death included only one of five poems that had originally been published in the Chicago-based magazine Poetry just two years before.The following book, Dark Summer (1929), included poems Bogan wrote between 1923 and 1929, as well as several from Body of This Death -- but some poems were discarded.And so on:with each new volume, Bogan included poems which survived the winnowing of her rigorous eye, but discarded those with which, for whatever reason, she was no longer pleased.Bogan's final book, The Blue Estuaries, published a year before her death in 1970, collects in one volume all the poems she selected for her personal oeuvre.

The theme of psychological frozenness seemed to have exerted an early fascination for Bogan."Medusa," for example, is an exquisitely rendered depiction of horrific changelessness.The speaker has seen something terrible -- represented by the Medusa, with her "stiff bald eyes" -- that has becomes transfixed in memory.It is the scene the speaker witnesses, not the speaker herself, that becomes frozen as a result of the encounter with the Medusa.Nothing in process at the beginning of the scene will be fulfilled, nor will anything follow:"The water will always fall, and will not fall."

By comparison, the lines in "The Sleeping Fury," a poem written several years later, are longer and looser than Bogan's usual controlled, formal lines, and they impose a structure fitting to the poem's content of freedom and redemption.The three Furies of Greek myth were responsible for punishing persons guilty of crimes that disturbed the social order -- murder (particularly of family members) or sexual crimes, for example.Here the speaker, whose crime we never learn, has tried to placate the enraged Fury with a burnt sacrifice; but while the sacrifice satisfies the society of which the speaker is a member, the Fury herself is unappeased.The speaker, whose repentance was half-hearted and false -- "The ignoble dream and the mask, sly, with slits at the eyes, / Pretence and half-sorrow, beneath which a coward's hope trembled." -- is still haunted by guilt and the Fury's scourges.It is only when the "scourged advances to meet" the Fury, turning back toward her to accept full punishment, that the Fury's rage come to an end and the speaker feel peace.This is a poem about guilt and expiation, self-confrontation and peace.It is also a poem about justice: "You, who give, unlike men, to expiation your mercy.""Men," says the speaker, will forgive even those who do not atone for their crimes -- but not the Fury, who is undeceived by the speaker's mask of "half-sorrow."

Though hearkening back to different mythological beings and written years apart from each other, "Medusa" and "The Sleeping Fury" are companion pieces, demonstrating Bogan's emotional range: in one poem, the depiction of pschological frozenness; in the other, the breaking open through a difficult self-confrontation to a peace in which even the frightening monster ceases to be frightful.One might speculate on the events in Bogan's life that gave rise to these poems, but we are unlikely to ever know for sure -- Bogan was not a confessional poet.

Most of Bogan's poems are short lyrics.Rarely do they exceed one printed page in length; rarely do they step outside the constraints of "closed" forms.Within those bounds, her close and careful attention to word choice makes even her shortest poems -- "Sub Contra," for example, or "Cassandra" or "The Drum" -- resonate with meaning.Many poets could write five times as many lines, each line twice as long, and not capture what Bogan captures half so well."Her poems can be read and reread:they keep yielding new meanings, as all good poetry should," wrote Theodore Roethke.

Many of her poems may, however, present difficulties for the first-time reader."Women are not noted for terseness," wrote Marianne Moore, "but Louise Bogan's poetry is compactness compacted," and Martha Collins has noted how reviewers of Bogan's poetry have frequently referred to Bogan's "craftsmanship" but almost in the same breath to her "obscurity."But given patience, close attention, an alert mind, and a good dictionary, her poems are not only penetrable, but among the best work American poetry has to offer. ... Read more

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A full-scale biography of the distinguished lyric poet, translator, and critic details the highs and lows of her elegant and sorrowful life and the steady growth and influence of her work.Amazon.com Review
The biography of poet Louise Bogan, who diedin 1971, and whose poems collected in The Blue Estuaries, were firstpublished in the 1920s. A prolific writer in her youth, Bogan was overcome bydemons she could not master, and as this book reveals, struggled with atemper, paranoia and jealousy greater than anyone might have guessed. WhileFrank provides insightful descriptions of Bogan's childhood and herproblematic relationship with her mother, she offers clues as to why the poetwas so private and why it became increasingly difficult for her to write. Thebook won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for biography. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Rare Find
One wants to find in a literary biography a judicious mix of attention to the writer's work and to the writer's life.One finds that here in Elizabeth's Frank's biography.One also finds just the right attitude toward Bogan -- not fawningly exuberant, not tediously scholarly -- but calmly,level-headedly, and insightfully appreciative.Coming to this biography, I knew little of Bogan's life, though I knew some of her poems.I marched through the book with gratitude for every chapter.Properly the biography has sent me back to Bogan's poems, recordings of her readings, and to her prose.While I'm not a "New Yorker" groupy, Bogan's colleagues at that magazine had something:William Maxwell, E. B. White's wife, et. al.These were people who came of age in the 1920s and 1930s but never lost their heads.Bogan was a remarkably strong individual and a gifted poet and critic.More people should know about her life and work."Louise Bogan: A Portrait" probably will never be surpassed as a place to acquaint oneself with Bogan, her time period, and other writers like Rolfe Humphries and Theodore Roethke.As biography this rates as one of the best one could ever read. ... Read more

Product Description
Although best known as a master of the formal lyric poem, Louise Bogan (1897– 1970) also published fiction and what would now be called lyrical essays. A Poet’s Prose: Selected Writings of Louise Bogan showcases her devotion to compression, eloquence, and sharp truths. Louise Bogan was poetry reviewer for the New Yorker for thirty-eight years, and her criticism was remarkable for its range and effect. Bogan was responsible for the revival of interest in Henry James and was one of the first American critics to notice and review W. H. Auden. She remained intellectually and emotionally responsive to writers as different from one another as Caitlin Thomas, Dorothy Richardson, W. B. Yeats, André Gide, and Rainer Maria Rilke. Bogan’s short stories appeared regularly in magazines during the 1930s, penetrating the social habits of the city as well as the loneliness there. The autobiographical element in her fiction and journals, never entirely confessional, spurred some of her finest writing. The distinguished poet and critic Mary Kinzie provides in A Poet’s Prose a selection of Bogan’s best criticism, prose meditations, letters, journal entries, autobiographical essays, and published and unpublished fiction. ... Read more

Product Description
This first comprehensive annotated bibliography of the twentieth-century poet and eminent critic Louise Bogan (1897-1970) covers all of her work, from her first poem, published in the 1915 "Boston University Beacon", to her last poetry review in the Dec. 28, 1968 "New Yorker", where she was poetry critic for 38 years. The works about Bogan span 1922-1989. The author provides a preface, an introduction, and an extensive title and author index. ... Read more

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A lecture delivered at the Library of Congress May 4, 1970 by William Jay Smith, Consultant in Poetry in English at the Library of Congress, 1968-70, just after Bogan's death at age 72 on February 4, 1970. Includes a bibliography, book reviews, listings of manuscripts, phonorecords, discs and tapes. Bogan was a noted poet and critic. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A metronomic alternation of anecdote and response
In this work, L. Gluck shows the reader her true strong emotion, and the enthalpy of love. Her images are gripping -- sometimes stark and at other times lush and vibrant. Common to all her pieces is the ability to move the reader to feel emotion. Maybe it is a sudden gasp of revelation of connection or perhaps the moment comes later, when the poetry resurfaces from deep in memory. Beware, emotions will be evoked. ... Read more

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This very special book celebrates the works and days of two significant women of letters, one from "back East", the other from the Inland Northwest. Poet and critic Louise Bogan lived at the epicenter of the nation's literary life for the three decades spanned by this collections of letters and postcards from New York, Seattle, Chicago, and Arkansas, to her Spokane friend, poet and teacher Mildred Weston. The book includes an interview between Leon Sarsky and Mildred Weston, letters from Louise Bogan to Mildred Weston, conversations between Mildred Weston and Beth Oakes, and a selection of Weston's poems from the 1920s to the 1990s. The edition is limited to 500 numbered copies, signed by the author. ... Read more

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A collection of poems grouped in such categories as "Birds, Beasts, and Flowers," "The Sea," and "The Moon and the Sun." ... Read more

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In The Glass Bees the celebrated German writer Ernst Juenger presents a disconcerting vision of the future. Zapparoni, a brilliant businessman, has turned his advanced understanding of technology, and strategic command of the information and entertainment industries, into a discrete, and seemingly benign, form of global domination. But Zapparoni is worried that the scientists he depends on might take his secrets to a rival. He needs a chief of security, and Richard, a veteran and war hero who has fallen on hard times, is ready. But when Richard arrives at the beautiful country compound that is Zapparoni's headquarters, he finds himself subjected to an unexpected ordeal--one for which nothing he has ever known has prepared him. Soon he is led to question his past, his character, and even his senses. When The Glass Bees was first published in 1960, Juenger's German critics dismissed the book's vision of the future as without contemporary relevance. Today, however, that future seems something very much like the present we now know. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

A QUIETLY PERCEPTIVE NOVEL
I gather when this novel came out, it was widely dismissed as irrelevant. It was probably out of sync with the contemporary German political sensibility with political parties that assured everyone that they were democratic and centrist.Given Jungers political history, I suspect a lot of people weren't all that eager to hear his reflections on contemporary society.Part of the books power comes from the fact that while you can seeit as a withering critique of the shallowness of contemporary society ,it's calm and rather good natured.This is no Celine style screed.Mostly , Captain Richard tells you about himself and meditates on the way we live now.It is very German with a romantic fixation on authenticity and alienation.Yet it manages to be "light".That is the key to it's success.You are reading a philosophical novel of some real depth, yet you never feel your being hit over the head with poorly digested philosophy.Junger was an amazing man ( if you doubt that read STORM OF STEEL as well).It's apparent from this novel that he was also a remarkably subtle writer.

A Possible Vision of the Future
This is certainly a fascinating read. Junger's vision of the future feels possible, there is a world weariness about his character's views, ideas and memories. The narrator mourns the simpler world, the world in which the calvary charged into battle, when men fought a known enemy. The war of our modern age, as written about by Junger in this philosophical novel, is just a war of distances, pressing buttons, eliminating your opponent without seeing them.

The novel essentially takes place in a day. We follow the thoughts, memories, dreams of a man long discharged from the army, searching for employment in a world filled with robots and other inventions. The world is strongly amoral, these robots entertain, have replaced actors and become the world's source of entertainment. The soldier, through the help of a former colleague, has an interview with a brilliant businessman - a Bill Gates meets Warren Buffet-like character named Zapparoni. Richard, the war veteran is needed to be head of security. This Zapparoni fears his inventors will give away his secrets.

This is more a novel of ideas as opposed to situations. Richard recalls men he went to school with, former soldiers he knew and hung around with after the wars. He reflects on the past and the present. It is not plot-driven and much of the interview between the narrator and the business men happen between the memories and thoughts of Richard. It is a reflective novel, pensive, melancholic but hopeful in some sense.

If you enjoy the Orwell or Huxley, bear in mind this is not a story of scenes, there is no real plot other than a man going to an interview. It is more of a snapshot of a man's life in a possible future world. Considering Junger lived to the age of 102, and this novel was written in the '50s', one wonders what he thought about the world on his deathbed in the late 1990's.

Technology v. Humanity
A wonderful work by Junger.An interesting contrast to his On Pain.I see three basic themes running through the work.First is what Man is doing to himself through ever increasing technological improvements. Junger first points out the beauty of the accomplishments, but then emphasizes their sinister destructiveness.The second theme is that of how this has changed the very essence of mankind.The former cavalryman, imbued with honor and humaneness, becomes a mere mechanic with the advent of the tank and has little use in the new age.Finally, Junger seems to really emphasize the importance of our formative experiences in shaping our selves.Again and again, he comes back to the education given by the cavalry instructor to his young charges and this helps the protagonist through the puzzles set forth by Zapparoni.While not a science-fiction work, it does have hints of Philip K. Dick or the Asimov robot stories .Not the easiest of reads, but still accessible and relevant.Beautifully translated.

Prophetic
THE GLASS BEES is an interesting, even fascinating book. It isn't necessarily an easy one to read, but then again, Ernst Jünger isn't known for his light touch with a pen. Like a lot of German authors, he writes in the "romantisch-pathetisch" style that translates into English rather clumsily, and makes frequent, somewhat rambling digressions which often go on for many pages and challenge the reader's patience. Unlike many of his countrymen, however, he is also capable of writing outbursts of prose so beautifully put together they sound like poetry and remain stuck in the mind forevermore. For this reason, and for his keen observations on life and the human condition, I am always willing to wade into Jünger's works, even when I know it will be heavy going.

THE GLASS BEES is something of a prophetic book, straddling the line between science-fiction and alternate history. Written in the mid-1950s, it foretold many aspects of modern life, most notably the rise of super-corporations led by brilliant but morally ambiguous men, the life-changing effects of technology, and the shift in moral climate that come about as a result of these things. The protagonist, Richards, is an ex-officer looking for work in a postwar economy that views him as something of an anachronism. Instilled with the classic military virtues, but lacking the ruthlessness and unscrupulousness which seems to define the modern man, Richards is practically starving when an old comrade sets up with a job interview with Zapparoni, a sort of cross between Howard Hughes, Henry Ford, Bill Gates and Walt Dinsney. Zapparoni is the brain of a corporate empire whose artificially intelligent, labor-saving machines have revolutionized both everyday life and the concept of entertainment, and his public image is of a charitable, child-loving, benificent old man. Richards, however, has heard more ominous things about Zapparoni: to wit, that he is really a monomaniacal control freak who crushes his corporate rivals into paste and terrorizes his own employees into slavelike obedience, "disappearing" anyone who becomes inconvenient. Richards, however, is desperate to provide for his beloved wife and marches grimly into Zapparoni's compound, reflecting as he tours the facilities on the tectonic changes in society which have occurred in his lifetime. Between audiences with the coldly enigmatic titan, Richards makes a number of jarring discoveries , not the least of which is that he cannot outrun the values instilled in him by his military academy training. The question then becomes twofold: will he leave the compound alive after what he has discovered, and if he does, can he find a place in a world where profit-motive, amorality and lust for power have replaced duty, honor and tradition?

THE GLASS BEES is undoubtedly a strange book, and it is arguable that if Jünger's prose style were less digressive and turgid his observations and questions would have been clearer and easier to understand. However, this does not change the fact that those observations and questions, penned fifty years ago, are not only relevant in today's world but actually crucial. The increasing power of corporations, ominous as that may be, is nothing compared to the way their "values" of Machiavellianism, greed and amorality have become the values of countless millions of people. On the other hand, the desire of scientists to play god just for the sake of it, which Jünger alludes to by showing us Zapparoni's mechanical bees, is not merely a warning about the threat technology poses to the ordinary man (who increasingly finds himself redundant in the workplace) but of the dangers of doing things simply because they can be done, without ever stopping to ask if they should be.

Interesting Prophecy
Ernst Junger died at the age of 102 in 1997. However interest in The Glass Bees (originally published in 1957) is more a credit to the book's prescience than its extraordinarily long-lived author. In the novel, the head of a multinational animation studio develops a new variety of movies using lifelike automatons indistinguishable from real actors. The glass bees of the title are his newest gizmos, as small as bees yet outperforming what they mimic, recreating and specializing themselves until their evolution races past their creators' control. More a meditation than a novel, this work airs the views of its narrator, a former cavalry officer obsessed with the ravages of modernity, specifically the way it makes our lives easier and more unpleasant. More ease, the old soldier says, has made us more prone to complain instead of less. While it's impossible to outline all the ideas in the officer's heady ruminations, they have a common theme: he was better off when his work was real. ... Read more