Selected Poems

Intense verbal music with a jazz feeling; invention against the grain of expectation; intelligence racing among materials with the variety of a busy street—these have been the qualities of Robert Pinsky's work since his first book, Sadness and Happiness (1975), celebrated for setting a new direction in American poetry. At that time, responding to a question about that book, Pinsky "I would like to write a poetry which could contain every kind of thing, while keeping all the excitement of poetry."

That ambition was realized in a new way with each of his books, including the book-length personal monologue An Explanation of America ; the transformed autobiography of History of My Heart ; the bestselling translation The Inferno of Dante ; and, most recently, the savage, inventive Gulf Music . That variety and renewal are represented in this brilliantly chosen volume.