THE COLLECTED POEMS OF JAMES AGEE

This consists of James Agee's only book of poems (which has been out of print for some thirty years) along with some sixty others written from 1929 to 1955. James Agee began to write as a poet at a very early age: ""Ann Garner"" was written at Phillips Exeter: others at Harvard, and these initial poems have maturity, an appealing lyric strength. Later Agee began to experiment widely, proceeding from the traditionally-poetic to the casually-conversational, even to lyrics (never used) for a comic operetta. Politics and modern life concerned him only occasionally: the majority of his poems are preoccupied with an agonizing awareness of life, not only its sensuous realities but its underlying paradoxes and philosophical conjectures. A religious intensity sharpens his viewpoint and this, along with his skill and versatility in rhymes, images and verse forms, gives the collection an inordinate appeal.