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Orphan Hours: Poems
“Combines stateliness, formal beauty and emotional urgency in rich and musical tapestries of language. . . . Every poem . . . is masterful.”― Washington Post Orphan Hours is a book of reconciliation, of coming to terms with time in its most personal and memorable manifestations, and of learning the wisdom of what cannot be changed. The urgency of the elegy has been absorbed by an acceptance of the detail, texture, and small moments that constitute and enrich mortality. from “Lapsed Meadow" I remember, in Ohio, fields of wastes of nature,
lost pasture, fallow clearings, buckwheat
and fireweed and broken sparrow nests,
especially in the summer, in the fading hilltop sun,
when you could lose yourself by simply lying down.
Who will find you, who will call you home now, at dusk,
with the dry tips of the goldenrod confused
with a little wind, filling in what’s left of the light.
lost pasture, fallow clearings, buckwheat
and fireweed and broken sparrow nests,
especially in the summer, in the fading hilltop sun,
when you could lose yourself by simply lying down.
Who will find you, who will call you home now, at dusk,
with the dry tips of the goldenrod confused
with a little wind, filling in what’s left of the light.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
First published June 4, 2012
1 person is currently reading
31 people want to read
About the author
Stanley Plumly
43 books17 followersOn May 23, 1939, Stanley Plumly was born to Herman and Esther Plumly in Barnesville, Ohio. Following Stanley's birth, the family moved from farm work to carpentry jobs and back to farm work in Virginia and Ohio. Plumly graduated from Wilmington College, a small work-study school in Ohio, in 1962. While he was in college, his writing talents were recognized and encouraged by the playwright-poet-teacher Joel Climenhaga. Plumly received his MA from Ohio University in 1968 and did course work toward a PhD at the same school.
The writer's father, who died at the age of fifty-six of a heart attack brought on by his chronic alcoholism, dominates the poet's work: "I can hardly think of a poem I've written that at some point in its history did not implicate, or figure, my father" (Iowa Review, Fall 1973). His mother also figures prominently as the silent, helpless witness of her husband's self-destruction.
Plumly's books of poetry include Old Heart (W. W. Norton, 2007); The Marriage in the Trees (Ecco Press, 1997); Boy on the Step (1989); Summer Celestial (1983); Out-of-the-Body Travel (1977), which won the William Carlos Williams Award and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Giraffe (1973); In the Outer Dark (1970), which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award. He is also the author of the nonfiction books Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography (W. W. Norton, 2008); Argument & Song: Sources & Silences in Poetry (Other Press, 2003).
He edited the Ohio Review from 1970 to 1975 and the Iowa Review from 1976 to 1978. He has taught at numerous institutions including Louisiana State University, Ohio University, Princeton, Columbia, and the Universities of Iowa, Michigan, and Houston, as well as at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in 1978 and 1979.
His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship (Plumly's father died while the poet was in Europe on this grant in 1973), an Ingram-Merrill Foundation Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. He is a professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park. Currently, he is Maryland's poet laureate.
The writer's father, who died at the age of fifty-six of a heart attack brought on by his chronic alcoholism, dominates the poet's work: "I can hardly think of a poem I've written that at some point in its history did not implicate, or figure, my father" (Iowa Review, Fall 1973). His mother also figures prominently as the silent, helpless witness of her husband's self-destruction.
Plumly's books of poetry include Old Heart (W. W. Norton, 2007); The Marriage in the Trees (Ecco Press, 1997); Boy on the Step (1989); Summer Celestial (1983); Out-of-the-Body Travel (1977), which won the William Carlos Williams Award and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Giraffe (1973); In the Outer Dark (1970), which won the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award. He is also the author of the nonfiction books Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography (W. W. Norton, 2008); Argument & Song: Sources & Silences in Poetry (Other Press, 2003).
He edited the Ohio Review from 1970 to 1975 and the Iowa Review from 1976 to 1978. He has taught at numerous institutions including Louisiana State University, Ohio University, Princeton, Columbia, and the Universities of Iowa, Michigan, and Houston, as well as at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in 1978 and 1979.
His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship (Plumly's father died while the poet was in Europe on this grant in 1973), an Ingram-Merrill Foundation Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. He is a professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park. Currently, he is Maryland's poet laureate.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 17, 2019
An interesting selection of writings by Plumly who died recently. Some of these are more "poetic" than others. I got the impression that Plumly was more interested in getting these down on paper and less interested in the form or technique used, but this is still worthwhile reading.
May 27, 2015
My second collection of poems by Plumly and it only rose to the occasion about half the time.
Plumly's style is simple with wonderful imagery and he often digs deep into his heart, the heart of a man.
This collection is clearly Plumly's contemplations on the final years of a man's life, much of the poetry explores old age, failing bodies, what is to come. These were pure Plumly and often left me thinking about my own graying years.
My problem with this collection is the various 'prose poems' scattered throughout. I'm not a fan of prose poems, but I can admire the form when I think it is meeting the poem's need. Plumly's attempts are many paragraphs and none of them ever seemed to read poetically. They could have easily been just random thoughts jotted down for further expansion in some greater piece of writing.
Plumly's style is simple with wonderful imagery and he often digs deep into his heart, the heart of a man.
This collection is clearly Plumly's contemplations on the final years of a man's life, much of the poetry explores old age, failing bodies, what is to come. These were pure Plumly and often left me thinking about my own graying years.
My problem with this collection is the various 'prose poems' scattered throughout. I'm not a fan of prose poems, but I can admire the form when I think it is meeting the poem's need. Plumly's attempts are many paragraphs and none of them ever seemed to read poetically. They could have easily been just random thoughts jotted down for further expansion in some greater piece of writing.
July 16, 2012
Read this over the weekend, and loved it. It is worth a reread later this summer or fall. Most of the poems made good sense to me on a first reading; a few required two readings, but none more than that. My own problem is the theme of death and the end, which made me feel awfully mortal.
November 4, 2012
I love his love of the sky, its colors, water, aging, and the molecules that make us. These poems showed me things slowly and generously.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews