In a Dark Time … The Eye Begins to See

PARADOX OF TIME I. GRAVITY OF STONE AND ECSTASY OF WIND Each day now more precious will dawn, And loved faces turn dearer still, And when sunlight is withdrawn, There, over the mountain’s black profile, The western star reigns In splendor, benign, arrogant, And the fact that it disdains You, and your tenement Of flesh, should instruct you in The paradox of Time, And the doubleness wherein The [...]

Brother to Dragons* by Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren, (1905-1989), poet, critic, novelist, teacher, born in Guthrie, Kentucky, was to become America’s first Poet Laureate, publishing 10 novels,16 books of collected poems, one book length poem, three books of collected short stories, four textbooks, a play, six books of collected essays, three historical works, and [...]

Although at times I was tempted to skip through the opening section of The Collected Poems of Robert Penn Warren, sticking to my belief that you ultimately gain the best understanding of a poet by reading all of his works chronologically, I finally got through the section entitled “Uncollected Poems 1922-1943.” Considering that [...]

I’m beginning to realize why, besides the stress of moving, I’m having such a hard time getting into Robert Penn Warren’s early poems despite the fact I love his later poems. Part of it is simply that I’m put off by his early style which seems to be a cross between Poe, Donne and Faulkner. [...]