Good morning: last poems

by Mark van Doren

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Genres: Poetry

95 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Mark van Doren was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thinkers including Thomas Merton, Robert Lax, John Berryman, Whittaker Chambers, and Beat Generation writers such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. He won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Collected Poems 1922–1938 and he was literary editor of The Nation, in New York City (1924–1928), and its film critic, 1935 to 1938.

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's some great stuff here, all from a poet I'm ashamed to admit I've never previously read.

A Dream of Trains

As long ago they raced,
Last night they raced again;
I heard them inside me,
I felt the roll of the land.

I looked out of a window
And I was moving too;
The moon above Nebraska,
Lonely and cold,

Mourned for all of the autumns
I had forgotten this:
The low hills that tilted,
The barrenness, the vast.

I think I will remember now
Until the end of the world
How lordly were the straightaways,
How lyrical the curves.



Thanksgiving Day

Hours without edges flow together
As the long afternoon, somnolent, keeps
Poor watch on the passing of time, that has
No shape any more, and small ambition.

Today melts back into yesterday,
And tomorrow will never arrive, say these
Who came to be with us, and now so sleepily
Go, with kisses drifting between us

And goodbyes, sweet on the autumn air,
Being our benediction. So
May dark come down and the day end,
Say we; this day that is like no other.

All poems in this volume were written late in the author's life, and many exhibit a melancholic reflection on the hurried passing of time, and the uncertainty of what comes next. Here is the full, rich work of an elderly man looking back on his life, recalling both joy and pain, and mourning all that can never be again.


What If I Still Could Run

What if I still could run,
What if I still could play,
Having no thought of tomorrow
Because it was not today?

What if I still were lightfoot,
What if I still were strong,
What if all afternoons
Of my life were endless long?

For that is how I remember---
Oh, time that never passed---
Eternity's rehearsal
Before black night at last.



Mark Van Doren died in 1972 at the age of 78.

[Bill Keefe · Rating 4 out of 5]

A virtual non-stop read. Twice. Not that he raises that much of a passion but it was satisfying, like a good winter meal; or a rough loaf that invites chewing. Chewing itself slows you down, if you're paying attention to it. And slowing down helps you digest better. The metaphor, however, stops with a first reading. ;-)

[Mills College Library]

811 V246g 1973