Inner Voices Selected Poems, 1963-2003

The poems of Richard Howard are noted for their unique dramatic force and for preserving, in their graceful, exquisitely wrought lines, human utterance at its most urbane.Inner Voices, the first volume to draw together material from Howard's twelve books of poems, leaves no doubt as to why he has been called "a powerful presence in American poetry for 40 years" (The New York Times Book Review). Richard Howardis a poet, scholar, teacher, critic, and translator. The author of more than a dozen books, includingPaper Trail: Selected Prose, 1965-2003, he is the recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the National Book Award for translation. He teaches at Columbia University and is poetry editor ofThe Paris Review. Winner of theLos AngelesTimesBook Prize for Poetry The poems of Richard Howard have long been celebrated for their compelling drama and graceful design--and for preserving, in their exquisitely wrought lines, human utterance at its most urbane. Here, in the first volume to draw together material from Howard's twelve books of poems, all students and scholars can fully appreciate the erudite nuances of his lyric poetry and the superb historical and emotional bravura of his dramatic monologues and imagined conversations among famous figures. Inner Voicesconveys a body of work that J.D. McClatchy has described as "a unique dramatic force [fusing] the structural intimacies of voice with the elaborate situations of speech." This selection leaves no doubt as to how and why Howard has been "a powerful presence in American poetry for forty years" (The New York Times Book Review). "By my count, 80 of the 100-odd poems [gathered here] take art or artists as their subject . . . In the landscape of American poetry no other poet, setting up a homestead for himself, has toiled so diligently to breed such a herd: [poems as] creatures whose dam is art and whose sire is art. It's a formidable task, and I can't imagine anyone better equipped for it than Howard, who recently turned 75 and has been publishing poems and essays for more than 40 years . . . The chronological arrangement of [this book] makes clear that Howard's poetry over the years has trended toward the more personal, direct, wryly plain-spoken. He follows a salutary impulse, and I pursuedInner Voicesnot merely with steady respect but with [a] gratitude, a warmth, a coalescing affection."--Brad Leithauser,The New York Times Book Review "By my count, 80 of the 100-odd poems [gathered here] take art or artists as their subject . . . In the landscape of American poetry no other poet, setting up a homestead for himself, has toiled so diligently to breed such a herd: [poems as] creatures whose dam is art and whose sire is art. It's a formidable task, and I can't imagine anyone better equipped for it than Howard, who recently turned 75 and has been publishing poems and essays for more than 40 years . . . The chronological arrangement of [this book] makes clear that Howard's poetry over the years has trended toward the more personal, direct, wryly plain-spoken. He follows a salutary impulse, and I pursuedInner Voicesnot merely with steady respect but with [a] gratitude, a warmth, a coalescing affection."--Brad Leithauser,The New York Times Book Review "In the last half-century, no American poet has been more instinctively, elegantly cosmopolitan than Richard Howard . . . Mr. Howard deserves to be known as the greatestlitterateurin America . . . For Mr. Howard, poetry [is] acauserieof master spirits across time and space. The majority of the poems inInner Voicesare responses to other poems, other artworks, other lives; when Mr. Howard is not meditating on a Nadar photograph or a Donatello sculpture, he

Richard Howard is a poet, scholar, teacher, critic, and translator. Inner Voices is published simultaneously by FSG with Howard's Paper Trail: Selected Prose, 1965-2003. He teaches at Columbia University and is poetry editor of The Paris Review.