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Selected Poems

Selected Poems: A.M. Klein

ZAILIG POLLOCK
SEYMOUR MAYNE
USHER CAPLAN
Copyright Date: 1997
Published by: University of Toronto Press
Pages: 176
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt1287x32
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  • Book Info
    Selected Poems
    Book Description:

    This collection of 84 poems offers a representative sampling of Klein?s finest poetry, while taking into account the changing critical discourse of the last 50 years.

    eISBN: 978-1-4426-2775-8
    Subjects: Language & Literature

Table of Contents

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  1. Front Matter
    (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    (pp. v-viii)
  3. Acknowledgments
    (pp. ix-x)
  4. Editors’ Introduction
    (pp. xi-2)

    Throughout his career Klein entertained high, perhaps impossibly high, ambitions for his poetry. Poetry was not true poetry unless it engaged some great theme; and Klein’s career as a poet is largely the record of a continuous inner struggle, through periods of silence as well as ones of intense productivity, to define and redefine such a theme, and to develop the means – emotional, intellectual, and artistic – to do it justice. It is a struggle which culminates in the great achievements of his maturity, and, then, in the bleak silence of his final years.

    The essence of Klein’s theme...

  5. POEMS

    • Portraits of a Minyan
      (pp. 3-8)
    • Out of the Pulver and the Polished Lens
      (pp. 9-13)
    • Design for Mediaeval Tapestry
      (pp. 13-20)
    • Haggadah
      (pp. 21-24)
    • Plumaged Proxy
      (pp. 24-24)
    • Scribe
      (pp. 25-26)
    • A Benediction
      (pp. 26-27)
    • Would That Three Centuries Past Had Seen Us Born
      (pp. 27-27)
    • These Northern Stars Are Scarabs in My Eyes
      (pp. 28-28)
    • Now We Will Suffer Loss of Memory
      (pp. 28-29)
    • Saturday Night
      (pp. 29-29)
    • Dialogue
      (pp. 29-30)
    • Market Song
      (pp. 30-31)
    • Heirloom
      (pp. 31-32)
    • Bestiary
      (pp. 32-33)
    • Ballad of the Dancing Bear
      (pp. 33-44)
    • Baal Shem Tov
      (pp. 44-44)
    • Elijah
      (pp. 45-46)
    • Scholar
      (pp. 46-47)
    • The Venerable Bee
      (pp. 47-48)
    • Rev Owl
      (pp. 48-48)
    • Orders
      (pp. 49-49)
    • Diary of Abraham Segal, Poet
      (pp. 49-56)
    • from ‘Of Castles in Spain’
      (pp. 57-57)
    • from ‘Barricade Smith: His Speeches’
      (pp. 57-61)
    • In Re Solomon Warshawer
      (pp. 61-67)
    • A Psalm of Abraham, When He Hearkened to a Voice, and There Was None
      (pp. 67-68)
    • A Psalm of Abraham, When He Was Sore Pressed
      (pp. 68-68)
    • A Prayer of the Afflicted, When He Is Overwhelmed
      (pp. 68-69)
    • A Psalm of Abraham, concerning That Which He Beheld upon the Heavenly Scarp
      (pp. 69-70)
    • Grace before Poison
      (pp. 70-71)
    • To the Chief Musician, Who Played for the Dancers
      (pp. 71-71)
    • A Prayer of Abraham, against Madness
      (pp. 72-72)
    • A Psalm of Abraham of That Which Was Visited upon Him
      (pp. 73-73)
    • A Psalm to Teach Humility
      (pp. 73-74)
    • A Psalm or Prayer – Praying His Portion with Beasts
      (pp. 74-75)
    • A Psalm of Abraham, to Be Written Down and Left on the Tomb of Rashi
      (pp. 75-76)
    • A Psalm Touching Genealogy
      (pp. 77-77)
    • Ballad of the Days of the Messiah
      (pp. 77-78)
    • from The Hitleriad
      (pp. 78-86)
    • Autobiographical
      (pp. 86-89)
    • Montreal
      (pp. 89-91)
    • Les Vespasiennes
      (pp. 92-93)
    • Dentist
      (pp. 93-94)
    • Basic English
      (pp. 94-96)
    • Bread
      (pp. 96-97)
    • And in That Drowning Instant
      (pp. 97-98)
    • Sonnet Unrhymed
      (pp. 98-99)
    • Portrait of the Poet as Landscape
      (pp. 99-104)
    • The Rocking Chair
      (pp. 105-105)
    • The Provinces
      (pp. 106-107)
    • The Cripples
      (pp. 107-108)
    • The Snowshoers
      (pp. 108-109)
    • For the Sisters of the Hotel Dieu
      (pp. 109-110)
    • Grain Elevator
      (pp. 110-111)
    • Université de Montréal
      (pp. 111-112)
    • The Sugaring
      (pp. 112-113)
    • Indian Reservation: Caughnawaga
      (pp. 113-114)
    • Krieghoff: Calligrammes
      (pp. 114-115)
    • Political Meeting
      (pp. 115-117)
    • Frigidaire
      (pp. 117-117)
    • Dress Manufacturer: Fisherman
      (pp. 118-119)
    • The Break-up
      (pp. 119-119)
    • Winter Night: Mount Royal
      (pp. 120-121)
    • Lookout: Mount Royal
      (pp. 121-122)
    • The Mountain
      (pp. 122-123)
    • Lone Bather
      (pp. 123-124)
    • Pastoral of the City Streets
      (pp. 125-126)
    • M. Bertrand
      (pp. 126-127)
    • Monsieur Gaston
      (pp. 127-127)
    • Doctor Drummond
      (pp. 128-128)
    • Parade of St. Jean Baptiste
      (pp. 129-132)
    • Cantabile
      (pp. 132-134)
    • Sestina on the Dialectic
      (pp. 134-135)
    • Meditation upon Survival
      (pp. 135-136)
    • Elegy
      (pp. 136-141)
    • Who Hast Fashioned
      (pp. 141-142)
    • Benedictions
      (pp. 142-142)
    • Stance of the Amidah
      (pp. 142-144)
    • Of the Making of Gragers
      (pp. 144-144)
    • Spinoza: On Man, on the Rainbow
      (pp. 145-146)

  6. TRANSLATIONS OF BIALIK

    • O Thou Seer, Go Flee Thee – Away
      (pp. 147-147)
    • A Spirit Passed before Me
      (pp. 148-149)

      A spirit passed before my face, it dazzled me; for an instant your fingertip, O Lord, quivered the strings of my heart.

      I stood there humbled, hushed, all ardor quelled. My heart curled within me; my mouth could not muster a psalm.

      And, in truth, with what was I to come into the Temple? And how could my prayer ever be pure?

      For my speech, O Lord, is altogether abhorrent, has become a broth of abomination.

      There is not a word in it that has not been infected to the root; not a phrase but heard and it is mocked,...

    • Stars Flicker and Fall in the Sky
      (pp. 149-150)
  7. Notes
    (pp. 153-188)
  8. Selected Bibliography
    (pp. 189-190)
  9. Index of Titles
    (pp. 191-194)
  10. Index of First Lines
    (pp. 195-197)