Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
New York : Knopf, 1983.
Description
The cove--Fog--Gradual clearing--The outer bar--Sea mouse--Beach glass-Marine surface, low overcast--(etc.). "Since 1978, when Amy Clampitt's poems began appearing in magazines and literary quarterlies, readers of poetry have taken notice of her originality, of her wry, keen, enraptured response to the world, of the intricate beauty and musicality of her poems, and of the classical nature of her principal themes. Now the poems are brought together in her first full-length collection ..."--Dust jacket flap.
User reviews
LibraryThing member dasam
Amy Clampitt's career as a poet was far too short---just 11 years. But she created a body of work any poet would be proud of. "The Kingfisher" was her amazing debut collection back in 1983 when she was 63 years old, and it stands today was one of the best collections of the second half of the 20th
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Century. For that matter, it has staying power. As I read and reread it in 2018, I hear echoes of Gerard Manley Hopkins AND Wallace Stevens. Her love of words as music, her encyclopedic incorporation of art, geography, botany, nature, travelogue, biography can make some of her poems dense. But each one bears rereading. Even those that seem most approachable at first have depths of feeling, thinking and experience. Read and savor. Show Less
Awards
National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist — Poetry — 1983)
Johnson Brigham Plaque Award (1986)
Notable Books List (1983)