Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems

by Robinson Jeffers

The book that first announced Robinson Jeffers to the world in 1925, taking American poetry by storm with what biographer Melba Bennett called "this strange and violent voice." Featuring the classic poems Roan Stallion, Tamar, The Tower Beyond Tragedy, Shine Perishing Republic, Divinely Superfluous Beauty, and many more.
"The greatest poetic consciousness of our day ... [The Tower Beyond Tragedy] should be accepted as the first, direct, harmonious modern work of poetic art equal to the Greeks." - Stuart Gilbert, Shine, Perishing A Study of Robinson Jeffers

Genres: Poetry

258 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1925

About the author

Collections of American poet John Robinson Jeffers, who sets many of his works in California, include Tamar and Other Poems (1924).

He knew the central coast and wrote mostly in classic narrative and epic form. Nevertheless, people today know also his short verse and consider him an symbol of the environmental movement.

The Harry Ransom humanities research center at the University of Texas at Austin and the libraries at Occidental College, the University of California, and Yale University collect many manuscripts and materials of Jeffers. Survivors published a collection of his letters posthumously as The Selected Letters of Robinson Jeffers, 1887–1962 (1968). Jeffers wrote other books or criticism and poetry: are: Poetry, Gongorism, and a Thousand Years (1949), Themes in My Poems (1956), Robinson Jeffers: Selected Poems (1965), The Alpine Christ and Other Poems (1974), What Odd Expedients" and Other Poems (1981), and Rock and Hawk: A Selection of Shorter Poems by Robinson Jeffers (1987).

Stanford University Press recently released a five-volume collection of the complete works of Robinson Jeffers. In an article titled, "A Black Sheep Joins the Fold", written upon the release of the collection in 2001, Stanford Magazine ably remarked that due to a number of circumstances, "there was never an authoritative, scholarly edition of California’s premier bard" until Stanford published the complete works.

Biographical studies include George Sterling, Robinson Jeffers: The Man and the Artist (1926); Louis Adamic, Robinson Jeffers (1929); Melba Bennett, Robinson Jeffers and the Sea (1936) and The Stone Mason of Tor House (1966); Edith Greenan, Of Una Jeffers (1939); Mabel Dodge Luhan, Una and Robin (1976; written in 1933); Ward Ritchie, Jeffers: Some Recollections of Robinson Jeffers (1977); and James Karman, Robinson Jeffers: Poet of California (1987). Books about Jeffers's career include L. C. Powell, Robinson Jeffers: The Man and His Work (1940; repr. 1973); William Everson, Robinson Jeffers: Fragments of an Older Fury (1968); Arthur B. Coffin, Robinson Jeffers: Poet of Inhumanism (1971); Bill Hotchkiss, Jeffers: The Sivaistic Vision (1975); James Karman, ed., Critical Essays on Robinson Jeffers (1990); Alex Vardamis The Critical Reputation of Robinson Jeffers (1972); and Robert Zaller, ed., Centennial Essays for Robinson Jeffers (1991). The Robinson Jeffers Newsletter, ed. Robert Brophy, is a valuable scholarly resource.

In a rare recording, Jeffers can be heard reading his "The Day Is A Poem" (September 19, 1939) on Poetry Speaks – Hear Great Poets Read Their Work from Tennyson to Plath, Narrated by Charles Osgood (Sourcebooks, Inc., c2001), Disc 1, #41; including text, with Robert Hass on Robinson Jeffers, pp. 88–95. Jeffers was also on the cover of Time – The Weekly Magazine, April 4, 1932 (pictured on p. 90. Poetry Speaks).

"Jeffers Studies", a journal of research on the poetry of Robinson Jeffers and related topics, is published semi-annually by the Robinson Jeffers Association.

Reviews

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Man, Jeffers has a huge thing about brother-sister incest. He's also incredibly repetitive. You could make a good drinking game from this book. Take a shot after every time you come across "Point Lobos" and swing from the chandeliers every time to you come across a reference to seagulls. Jeffers reads better in an anthology mixed with other poets. One huge dose is nauseating.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not sure if I would call the poetry of Robinson Jeffers life changing, but certainly I feel like I discovered something vast.

[Jeannette · Rating 3 out of 5]

what do I remember about Jeffers poetry? probably mostly that he was a luminary during my time in Big Sur. Everyone read Jeffers poetry because he supposedly captured the spirit of that wondrous luminous coastal world, vibrant ocean full of sea life, hills cruised by eagles and hawks, mysterious canyons with sentinel redwoods guarding streams and carpets of leaves, open hillslopes with poppies and lupines, manzanita and oaks. Hard to imagine anywhere as impressive and Jeffers did his best to capture it, distill it, say it.

[Bill Yake · Rating 3 out of 5]

My overall impression is that Jeffers had talent and obsessions, and that he wrote in a style that can be difficult to track on. Gary Snyder called his a "tall cold view." Obsessions included stone, hawks, the sea, and the coldness, incest, self-destructiveness, cruelty and the general unappealing nature of humans. His best lines are very good and/or disturbing; the worst are repetitive and often in need of commas or hyphens.

I found this evaluation helpful:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-x...

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I skipped most of the last 50 pages of this lengthy collection. Jeffers’s lyrics are almost uniformly bad—as are most lyric poems. His strength is in verse drama and narrative. These are not perfect works by any means, but they have real power in their best moments—here The Tower Beyond Tragedy, a version of The Oresteia, is probably the best, though Roan Stallion is more famous.

[Descending Angel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started with the big 700 page+ Selected Poems of Jeffers, fell in love with his poetry and I'm now working my way through his work. This has some of Jeffers most famous works~ Roan Stallion and Tamar obviously, but also Shine Perishing Republic and what was only in part collected in the Selected Poems ~ The Tower Beyond Tragedy which is great. The poems that were new to me were all good too.

[Clayton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeffers’ works are not written—much more concocted. The poetry, characters, and plots all decanted through the pellucid peaks of a high fever. Tamar being the absolute summit of such wrong conception. It is a poisonous read of biblical proportion that demands to be finished once started.
The landscapes are clear, the characters fallen, and the stories therein universally damning.
You can tell this is the same sin scorched ground where Cormac McCarthy has trod. I would place both Tamar and The Tower Beyond Tragedy alongside Heaney’s translation of Beowolf for best epic poetry of the last hundred years.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roan Stallion, Tamar and Other Poems is a mixed collection of verse from Robinson Jeffers, featuring some outstanding long narrative poems ("Roan Stallion", "The Tower Beyond Tragedy", "Tamar"), as well as a handful of excellent shorter works ("Science", "Natural Music", "To the Rock That Will be a Cornerstone of the House").

However, quite a few of the shorter poems are rather workmanlike, the sort of things a reader instantly forgets after the reading is done. The reward for the patient reader are those spare moments when Jeffers manages to reach beyond the ordinary and express something with true resonance, as in "Vices":

Spirited people make a thousand jewels in verse and prose, and the restlessness of talent
Runs over and floods the stage or spreads its fever on canvas.
They are skilled in music too, the demon is never satisfied, they take to puppets, they invent
New arts, they take to drugs ... and we all applaud our vices.
Mine, coldness and the tenor of a stone tranquillity; slow life, the growth of trees and verse,
Content the unagitable and somewhat earthfast nature.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

some really great poems in this though not revolutionary or overtly genius but rather a 20th century greek poet. We need more poets like this.

[Vivian Zenari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hermeticism with a big chunk of Walt Whitman, smidgeon of Wordsworth and respectable amount of HP Lovecraft.