Dolphin

An expanded edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of poetry I have sat and listened to too many words of the collaborating muse, and plotted perhaps too freely with my life, not avoiding injury to others, not avoiding injury to myself– to ask compassion . . . this book, half fiction, an eelnet made by man for the eel fighting my eyes have seen what my hand did. Winner of the 1973 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, Robert Lowell’s The Dolphin was controversial from the beginning: many of the poems include the letters that Lowell’s wife, the celebrated writer and critic Elizabeth Hardwick, wrote to him after he left her for the English socialite and writer Caroline Blackwood. He was warned by many, among them Elizabeth Bishop, that “art just isn’t worth that much.” Nevertheless, these poems are a powerful document of an impulsive love, and a moving record of Lowell’s change from one life and marriage in America to a new life on new terms with a new family in England, rendered with the stunning technical power and control that Lowell was so celebrated for. This new edition includes, following the 1973 edition, scans of the pages of Lowell’s original manuscript, giving us a look into the brilliant and complicated mind of one of our most beloved and distinguished poets.

• | Author: Lowell
• | Publisher: FSG Adult
• | Publication Date: December 10, 2019
• | Number of Pages: 224 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0374538271
• | ISBN-13: 9780374538279