Effort at Speech
From AwardAnnals
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| Author(s) | William Meredith |
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| Subtitle | New and Selected Poems |
| Publisher | Northwestern University Press |
| Honors | |
| A contemporary of John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, and Robert Lowell, William Meredith shared neither the bohemian excesses of the Beats nor the exhibitionist excesses of the “confessional” poets. Rather, Meredith was known from the beginning of his career as a poet whose unadorned, formal verse marked him as a singular voice. From his early, deeply personal poems to the later, less formal poems concerned with tolerance, civility, and shared values, Meredith’s craft is marked by a thoughtfulness not often seen in poets of his, or successive, generations. He is… | |
A contemporary of John Berryman, Elizabeth Bishop, and Robert Lowell, William Meredith shared neither the bohemian excesses of the Beats nor the exhibitionist excesses of the “confessional” poets. Rather, Meredith was known from the beginning of his career as a poet whose unadorned, formal verse marked him as a singular voice. From his early, deeply personal poems to the later, less formal poems concerned with tolerance, civility, and shared values, Meredith’s craft is marked by a thoughtfulness not often seen in poets of his, or successive, generations. He is the master of the poem that seems colloquial at first glance, but is in fact deliberately voiced, measured out, and shaped. His is a voice of unequaled honesty and clarity.
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
The New York Times Book Review wrote that William Meredith’s poetry “suggests that we can recognize the hardest truths about ourselves and still live in the world.” This collection, a summing up of Meredith’s best writing over several decades, won the National Book Award, and is the sort of book readers will return to again and again for its considerable virtues: attention to craft, the ring of truth, and clarity in a world of muddle. Here’s one favorite poem, titled “A Major Work”: “Poems are hard to read / Pictures are hard to see / Music is hard to hear / And people are hard to love / But whether from brute need / Or divine energy / At last mind eye and ear / and the great sloth heart will move.”
