Poems, 1957-1967

New York: Collier Books, 1968. Fifth printing, 1972 [Originally pub. as Hardback by Wesleyan]. Trade paperback. Good. Signed by author. Inscription signed "Jim" on half title page. Cover has some wear and soiling.. xv, [1], 299, [5] p. Includes the complete Buckdancer's Choice, winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 1966. This volume presents the major work of a man whom critics and readers have designated the authentic poet of his American generation. For this collection, James Dickey has selected from his four published books all those poems that reflect his truest interests and his growth as an artist. And thereto he has added more than a score of new poems-in effect, a new book in themselves-that have not been previously published in volume form. Specifically, Poems 1957-1967 contains 15 of the 24 poems that were included in his first book, Into the Stone (1960); 25 of the 36 that made up Drowning With Others (1962); 22 of the 24 in Helmets (1964); the entire 22 in the National Book Award winning Buckdancer's Choice (1965); and, under the titles Sermon and Falling, the exciting new poems mentioned above. Seldom can the word "great" be used of the work of a contemporary in any art. But surely it applies to the poems of James Dickey. To test that statement, read this book. "Dickey has defined the poet as an 'intensified man. ' These collected poems of his 44th year are a record of a lot of valid and immediate experience-the testimony of a man intensifying himself honestly and skillfully."-William Meredith, New York Times Book Review "One of the things we should mean when we call a poet 'good' is that his work returns us to the world and not merely to the poet. Dickey gives the moment a natural energy, not the energy of the poet's insistence upon his own personality but the energy of a vast life outside the poet which moves all things through one another and through him."-Michael Goldman, The Nation From Wikipedia: "James Lafayette Dickey (February 2, 1923 January 19, 1997) was an American poet and novelist. He was appointed the eighteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966....James Dickey was born to lawyer Eugene Dickey and Maibelle Swift in Atlanta, Georgia, where he attended North Fulton High School in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood. In 1942 he enrolled at Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina and played on the football team as a tailback. After one semester, he left school to enlist in the Army Air Corps. Dickey served with the U.S. Army Air Forces as a radar operator in a night fighter squadron during the Second World War, and in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. Between the wars, he attended Vanderbilt University, graduating with degrees in English and philosophy, as well as minoring in astronomy. He also taught at the University of Florida. From 1950 to 1954, Dickey taught at Rice University (then Rice Institute) in Houston. While teaching freshman composition at Rice, Dickey returned for a two-year air force stint in Korea, then went back to teaching (Norton Anthology, The Literature of the American South, p. 809). He then worked for several years in advertising, most notably writing copy and helping direct creative work on the Coca-Cola and Lay's Potato Chips campaign. He once said he embarked on his advertising career in order to "make some bucks." Dickey also said "I was selling my soul to the devil all day...and trying to buy it back at night." He returned to poetry in 1960, and his first book, Into the Stone and Other Poems, was published in 1960; Drowning with Others was published in 1962, which led to a Guggenheim Fellowship (Norton Anthology, The Literature of the American South). Buckdancer's Choice (1965) earned him a National Book Award for Poetry. Among his better-known poems are "The Performance", "Cherrylog Road", "The Firebombing", "May Day Sermon", "Falling", and "For The Last Wolverine." After being named a poetry consultant for the Library of Congress, he published his first volume of collected poems, Poems 1957-1967 in 1967. This publishing may represent Dickey's best work he subsequently accepted a position of Professor of English and writer-in-residence at the University of South Carolina at Columbia. His popularity exploded after the film version of his.