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by: Jean Toomer, Robert B. Jones, Margery Toomer
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 811.52
EAN: 9780807817735
ISBN: 0807817732
Label: Univ of North Carolina Pr
Manufacturer: Univ of North Carolina Pr
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 111
Publication Date: 1988-03
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr
Sales Rank: 2494776
Studio: Univ of North Carolina Pr
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Product Description:
This volume is the only collected edition of poems by Jean Toomer, the enigmatic American writer, Gurdjieffian guru, and Quaker convert who is perhaps best known for his 1923 lyrical narrative Cane. The fifty-five poems here—most of them previously unpublished—chart a fascinating evolution of artistic consciousness.
The book is divided into sections reflecting four distinct periods of creativity in Toomer's career. The Aesthetic period includes Imagist, Symbolist, and other experimental pieces, such as 'Five Vignettes,' while 'Georgia Dusk' and the newly discovered poem 'Tell Me' come from Toomer' s Ancestral Consciousness period in the early 1920s. 'The Blue Meridian' and other Objective Consciousness poems reveal the influence of idealist philosopher Georges Gurdjieff. Among the works of this period the editor presents a group of local color poems picturing the landscape of the American Southwest, including 'Imprint for Rio Grande.' 'It Is Everywhere,' another newly discovered poem, celebrates America and democratic idealism. The Quaker religious philosophy of Toomer's final years is demonstrated in such Christian Existential works as 'They Are Not Missed' and 'To Gurdjieff Dying.'
Robert Jones's clear and comprehensive introduction examines the major poems in this volume and serves as a guide through the stages of Toomer's evolution as an artist and thinker. The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer will prove essential to Toomer's admirers as well as to scholars and students of modern poetry, Afro-American literature, and American studies.
Customer Reviews
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Rating: - What About The Works of the writer.
I really wish that some pepole out there would focus more on Mr. Toomer's writing talents and not on this whole "was he or was'nt he" about his racial background. I believe that Jean Toomer's words are powerful and universal for all people! His imagery is so amazing it's almost visual, and he is able to make the political deeply personal and not preachy. The works of this brilliant writer is far more important to me than the tiresome, trivial, and unfortunate pettiness of some individuals ... Read More
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