Table of Contents
Contents
from Hard Freight (1973)
Homage to Ezra Pound
Homage to Arthur Rimbaud
Homage to Baron Corvo
Homage to X
The New Poem
Portrait of the Poet in Abraham von Werdt’s Dream
Chinoiserie
One Two Three
Slides of Verona
Grace
Negatives
Dog Creek Mainline
Blackwater Mountain
Sky Valley Rider
Northanger Ridge
Primogeniture
Nightdream
Congenital
Clinchfield Station
from Bloodlines (1975)
Virgo Descending
Easter, 1974
Cancer Rising
Tattoos
Notes to Tattoos
Hardin County
Delta Traveller
Skins
Notes to Skins
Link Chain
Bays Mountain Covenant
Rural Route
from China Trace (1977)
Childhood
Snow
Self-Portrait in 2035
Morandi
Dog
Snapshot
Indian Summer
Wishes
Quotidiana
At Zero
Sentences
Death
Next
January
1975
Nerval’s Mirror
Edvard Munch
Bygones
Equation
California Twilight
Anniversary
12 Lines at Midnight
Dino Campana
Invisible Landscape
Remembering San Zeno
Born Again
Captain Dog
Depression Before the Solstice
Stone Canyon Nocturne
Reply to Chi K’ang
Reunion
“Where Moth and Rust Doth Corrupt”
April
Signature
Noon
Going Home
Cloud River
Reply to Lapo Gianni
Thinking of Georg Trakl
Spider Crystal Ascension
Moving On
Clear Night
Autumn
Sitting at Night on the Front Porch
Saturday 6 a.m
Him
from The Southern Cross (1981)
Homage to Paul Cézanne
Mount Caribou at Night
Self-Portrait
Holy Thursday
Virginia Reel
Self-Portrait
Called Back
Self-Portrait
Composition in Grey and Pink
Laguna Blues
Driving Through Tennessee
Landscape with Seated Figure and Olive Trees
Dog Yoga
California Spring
Laguna Dantesca
Dog Day Vespers
Portrait of the Artist with Hart Crane
Portrait of the Artist with Li Po
The Monastery at Vršac
Hawaii Dantesca
Ars Poetica
Bar Giamaica, 1959–60
Gate City Breakdown
New Year’s Eve, 1979
The Southern Cross
from The Other Side of the River (1984)
Lost Bodies
Lost Souls
Lonesome Pine Special
Two Stories
The Other Side of the River
Homage to Claude Lorrain
Mantova
Driving to Passalacqua, 1960
Italian Days
Roma I
Roma II
Homage to Cesare Pavese
Cryopexy
T’ang Notebook
Arkansas Traveller
To Giacomo Leopardi in the Sky
Looking at Pictures
California Dreaming
from Zone Journals (1988)
A Journal of English Days
March Journal
A Journal of True Confessions
Night Journal
A Journal of the Year of the Ox
Light Journal
A Journal of One Significant Landscape
Chinese Journal
Night Journal II
from Xionia (1990)
Silent Journal
Bicoastal Journal
December Journal
Georg Trakl Journal
Language Journal
May Journal
A Journal of Southern Rivers
China Journal
Local Journal
Last Journal
from Chickamauga (1995)
Sitting Outside at the End of Autumn
Reading Lao Tzu Again in the New Year
Under the Nine Trees in January
After Reading Wang Wei, I Go Outside to the Full Moon
Easter 1989
Reading Rorty and Paul Celan One Morning in Early June
Cicada
Tennessee Line
Looking Outside the Cabin Window, I Remember a Line by Li Po
Mid-winter Snowfall in the Piazza Dante
Sprung Narratives
Broken English
Chickamauga
Blaise Pascal Lip-syncs the Void
The Silent Generation
An Ordinary Afternoon in Charlottesville
Mondo Angelico
Mondo Henbane
Miles Davis and Elizabeth Bishop Fake the Break
Peccatology
East of the Blue Ridge, Our Tombs Are in the Dove’s Throat
As Our Bodies Rise, Our Names Turn into Light
Still Life with Spring and Time to Burn
With Simic and Marinetti at the Giubbe Rosse
To the Egyptian Mummy in the Etruscan Museum at Cortona
With Eddie and Nancy in Arezzo at the Caffè Grande
Watching the Equinox Arrive in Charlottesville, September 1992
Waiting for Tu Fu
Still Life with Stick and Word
Looking West from Laguna Beach at Night
Looking Again at What I Looked At for Seventeen Years
Looking Across Laguna Canyon at Dusk, West-by-Northwest
Venexia I
Venexia II
from Black Zodiac (1997)
Apologia Pro Vita Sua
Poem Half in the Manner of Li Ho
Meditation on Form and Measure
Poem Almost Wholly in My Own Manner
Meditation on Summer and Shapelessness
The Appalachian Book of the Dead
Umbrian Dreams
October II
Lives of the Saints
Christmas East of the Blue Ridge
Negatives II
Lives of the Artists
Deep Measure
Thinking of Winter at the Beginning of Summer
Jesuit Graves
Meditation on Song and Structure
Sitting at Dusk in the Back Yard After the Mondrian Retrospective
Black Zodiac
China Mail
Disjecta Membra
from Appalachia (1998)
Stray Paragraphs in February, Year of the Rat
Stray Paragraphs in April, Year of the Rat
Basic Dialogue
Star Turn
A Bad Memory Makes You a Metaphysician, a Good One
Makes You a Saint
In the Kingdom of the Past, the Brown-Eyed Man Is King
Passing the Morning Under the Serenissima
Venetian Dog
In the Valley of the Magra
Returned to the Yaak Cabin, I Overhear an Old Greek Song
Ars Poetica II
Cicada Blue
All Landscape Is Abstract, and Tends to Repeat Itself
Opus Posthumous
Quotations
The Appalachian Book of the Dead II
Indian Summer II
Autumn’s Sidereal, November’s a Ball and Chain
The Writing Life
Reply to Wang Wei
Giorgio Morandi and the Talking Eternity Blues
Drone and Ostinato
“It’s Turtles All the Way Down”
Half February
Back Yard Boogie Woogie
The Appalachian Book of the Dead III
Opus Posthumous II
Body Language
“When You’re Lost in Juarez, in the Rain, and It’s Eastertime Too”
The Appalachian Book of the Dead IV
Early Saturday Afternoon, Early Evening
“The Holy Ghost Asketh for Us with Mourning and Weeping Unspeakable”
The Appalachian Book of the Dead V
Star Turn II
After Reading T’ao Ch’ing, I Wander Untethered Through the Short Grass
Remembering Spello, Sitting Outside in Prampolini’s Garden
American Twilight
The Appalachian Book of the Dead VI
Landscape as Metaphor, Landscape as Fate and a Happy Life
Opus Posthumous III
from North American Bear (1999)
Step-children of Paradise
Thinking About the Night Sky, I Remember a Poem by Tu Fu
North American Bear
If You Talk the Talk, You Better Walk the Walk
St. Augustine and the Arctic Bear
Sky Diving
from A Short History of the Shadow (2002)
Looking Around
Looking Around II
Looking Around III
Citronella
If This Is Where God’s At, Why Is That Fish Dead?
It’s Dry for Sure, Dry Enough to Spit Cotton
If My Glasses Were Better, I Could See Where I’m Headed For
Lost Language
Mondo Orfeo
In Praise of Thomas Hardy
Is
Polaroids
Nostalgia
A Short History of the Shadow
River Run
Appalachian Lullaby
Relics
Why, It’s as Pretty as a Picture
Nine-Panel Yaak River Screen
The Wind Is Calm and Comes from Another World
Summer Mornings
Via Negativa
Nostalgia II
Body and Soul
Body and Soul II
from Buffalo Yoga (2004)
Landscape with Missing Overtones
Portrait of the Artist by Li Shang-Yin
Buffalo Yoga
Buffalo Yoga Coda I
Buffalo Yoga Coda II
Buffalo Yoga Coda III
The Gospel According to St. Someone
Homage to Mark Rothko
Portrait of the Artist in a Prospect of Stone
Rosso Venexiano
Arrivederci Kingsport
January II
Homage to Giorgio Morandi
My Own Little Civil War
Sun-Saddled, Coke-Copping, Bad-Boozing Blues
In Praise of Han Shan
from Scar Tissue (2006)
Appalachian Farewell
Last Supper
The Silent Generation II
The Wrong End of the Rainbow
A Field Guide to the Birds of the Upper Yaak
A Short History of My Life
Confessions of a Song and Dance Man
College Days
Bedtime Story
Transparencies
Morning Occurrence at Xanadu
The Minor Art of Self-defense
Scar Tissue
Scar Tissue II
Get a Job
Archaeology
In Praise of Franz Kafka
Vespers
The Narrow Road to the Distant City
Ghost Days
The Silent Generation III
Time Will Tell
The Woodpecker Pecks, but the Hole Does Not Appear
Singing Lesson
Littlefoot (2007)
from Sestets (2009)
Tomorrow
Future Tense
Flannery’s Angel
In Praise of What Is Missing
By the Waters of Babylon
Hasta la Vista Buckaroo
Born Again II
No Entry
Celestial Waters
Anniversary II
Sunlight Bets on the Come
“Well, Get Up, Rounder, Let a Working Man Lay Down”
With Horace, Sitting on the Platform, Waiting for the Robert E. Lee
The Evening Is Tranquil, and Dawn Is a Thousand Miles Away
Homage to What’s-His-Name
Tutti Frutti
“This World Is Not My Home, I’m Only Passing Through”
Stiletto
“I Shall Be Released”
Description’s the Art of Something or Other
“It’s Sweet to Be Remembered”
In Memory of the Natural World
Yellow Wings
Twilight of the Dogs
Remembering Bergamo Alto
With Alighieri on Basin Creek
Walking Beside the Diversion Ditch Lake
The Ghost of Walter Benjamin Walks at Midnight
Bees Are the Terrace Builders of the Stars
When the Horses Gallop Away from Us, It’s a Good Thing
Autumn Is Visionary, Summer’s the Same Old Stuff
Bitter Herbs to Eat, and Dipped in Honey
No Angel
Time Is a Graceless Enemy, but Purls as It Comes and Goes
Terrestrial Music
Before the Propane Lamps Come On, the World Is a Risk and Wonder
On the Night of the First Snow, Thinking About Tennessee
Our Days Are Political, but Birds Are Something Else
We Hope That Love Calls Us, but Sometimes We’re Not So Sure
Time Is a Dark Clock, but It Still Strikes from Time to Time
Like the New Moon, My Mother Drifts Through the Night Sky
As the Train Rolls Through, I Remember an Old Poem
April Evening
The Book
Sundown Blues
“On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine”
No Direction Home
Hovercraft
Time Is a Child-Biting Dog
Nothing Is Written
Little Ending
from Caribou (2014)
Across the Creek Is the Other Side of the River
Time and the Centipedes of Night
Cake Walk
Waterfalls
The Childhood of St. Thomas
Everything Passes, but Is It Time?
Homage to Samuel Beckett
Crystal Declension
Grace II
Heaven’s Eel
“I’m Going to Take a Trip in That Old Gospel Ship”
Ancient of Days
Sentences II
Shadow and Smoke
Road Warriors
“Just a Closer Walk with Thee”
History Is a Burning Chariot
“Things Have Ends and Beginnings”
Little Elegy for an Old Friend
The Last Word
“I’ve Been Sitting Here Thinking Back Over My Life . . .”
“What Becomes of the Brokenhearted . . .”
“My Old Clinch Mountain Home”
Toadstools
Dude
Pack Rats
Four Dog Nights
October, Mon Amour
Ducks
Lullaby
Plain Song
Whatever Happened to Al Lee?
“So Long, It’s Been Good to Know You”
Detour
Drift Away
“Well, Roll On, Buddy, Don’t You Roll Too Slow”
Chinoiserie II
Chinoiserie IV
Solo Joe Revisited
Chinoiserie V
Translations from a Forgotten Tongue
Notes
Index of Titles and First Lines
