Stones of the Sur: Poetry by Robinson Jeffers, Photographs by Morley Baer

by Robinson Jeffers, Morley Baer, James Karman (Editor)

The precipitous cliffs, rolling headlands, and rocky inlets of the Big Sur coast of California were alive for Robinson Jeffers, and throughout his long career as a poet, he extolled their wild beauty. His vivid descriptions inspired the best work of other artists who lived nearby, including such noted photographers as Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and their younger contemporary Morley Baer. Before he died in 1995, Baer was planning a volume that would bring together a group of his landscape photographs of the Big Sur area with a selection of poems that expressed Jeffers's mystical experience of stone. Jeffers believed that stone is alive, perhaps even conscious in some way. Baer wanted to create a visual and literary meditation on the life-experience of stone. James Karman was invited by Baer to serve as his collaborator, and has brought the project to completion―more than 50 of Baer's photographs paired with poems by Jeffers (some complete, others excerpted). Stones of the Sur is in five parts, each of which takes its title from a poem. Part I, "Tor House," contains photographs and poems about Jeffers's home, ever the locus of his inspiration. Part II, "Continent's End," begins with a panoramic view of the coastline and is followed by visual and textual images that become progressively narrower in scope as Baer and Jeffers focus on the mountains, cliffs, beaches, boulders, rocks, and pebbles of the Big Sur. The inward progression continues in Part III, "Oh Lovely Rock," where Baer trains his lens on close surfaces―revealing his sensibilities at their most abstract. From the middle of Part III on, the spiral is reversed and the view begins to open. Part IV, "Credo," expands outwardly from the pebbles and rocks of the Big Sur back to the beaches, cliffs, and mountains. Part V, "The Old Stone-Mason," concludes the book with a return to Tor House.

Genres: Photography, Poetry

176 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2002

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

[KathyC · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very beautiful, exceptionally cohesive melding of author and place. Jeffer’s writing enhances the photographs and the photographs enhance his poetry. What books combining an author’s words with pictures of the landscape they write about aspire to.

[Jay Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stones of the Sur is probably my favorite photography book. The photographs are gorgeous, and the poems are beautifully written.