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Kenneth Fearing: Selected Poems

A generous and wide-ranging selection of from poems from Angel Arms (1929), Dead Reckoning (1938), Afternoon of a Pawnbroker (1943), Stranger at Coney Island (1948), and other collections. More

Edited by Robert Polito

Overview
Table of Contents

Overview

Audio New York Public Radio: Kenneth Fearing’s media fixations made him ahead of his time
April 13, 2018

The Moviegoer When it’s okay to stray from the source: No Way Out resets The Big Clock
May 2, 2017

Poet, journalist, and crime novelist, Kenneth Fearing wrote poems filled with the jargon of advertising and radio broadcasts and tabloid headlines, sidewalk political oratory, and the pop tunes on the jukebox. Seeking out what he called “the new and complex harmonies . . . of a strange and still more complex age,” he evoked the jitters of the Depression and the war years in a voice alternately sardonic and melancholy, and depicted a fragmenting urban world bombarded by restless desires and unnerving fears.

But, in the words of editor Robert Polito, “Fearing’s poems carry no whiff of the curio or relic. If anything, his poems . . . insinuated an emerging media universe that poetry still only fitfully acknowledges.” This new selection foregrounds the energy and originality of Fearing’s prophetic poetry, with its constant formal experimenting and its singular note of warning: “We must be prepared for anything, anything, anything.” As a chronicler of mass culture and its discontents, Fearing is a strangely solitary figure who cannot be ignored.

Robert Polito is a poet, biographer, and critic. His books include Doubles, A Reader’s Guide to James Merrill’s The Changing Light at Sandover, and Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson, for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award. He directs the Graduate Writing Program at New School University in New York City.

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Table of Contents

Introduction by Robert Polito

from Angel Arms (1929)
St. Agnes’ Eve
Minnie and Mrs. Hoyne
Andy and Jerry and Joe
Cultural Notes
John Standish, Artist
They Liked It
Jack Knuckles Falters But Reads Own Statement at His Execution While Wardens Watch
from Aphrodite Metropolis
The Drinkers
Lithographing
Portrait
The Cabinet of Simplicity
Ballad of the Salvation Army
Green Light
Breakfast With Hilda
Saturday Night
Evening Song
Invitation
Angel Arms

from Poems (1935)
Conclusion
Winner Take All
Resurrection
Obituary
American Rhapsody (1)
Dividends
X Minus X
1933
Dear Beatrice Fairfax:
American Rhapsody (2)
As the Fuse Burns Down
No Credit
Dirge
What If Mr. Jesse James Should Some Day Die?
Escape
$2.50
American Rhapsody (3)
Lullaby
20th Century Blues
Denouement

from Dead Reckoning (1938)
En Route
Happy New Year
Literary
Lunch With the Sole Survivor
Devil’s Dream
Hold the Wire
Longshot Blues
A Pattern
The Program
American Rhapsody (5)
Portrait
C Stands for Civilization
Take a Letter
Radio Blues
Dance of the Mirrors
Manhattan
Scheherazade
How Do I Feel?

from Collected Poems of Kenneth Fearing (1940)
from “The Agency”
Agent No. 174 Resigns
Pact
The Doctor Will See You Now
Gentleman Holding Hands With Girl
Portrait of a Cog
A La Carte
American Rhapsody (4)
Yes, the Agency Can Handle That
Class Reunion
Payday in the Morgue
Love, 20¢ the First Quarter Mile
Discussion After the Fifth or Sixth
Readings, Forecasts, Personal Guidance

from Afternoon of a Pawnbroker and Other Poems (1943)
Continuous Performance
Art Review
Cracked Record Blues
Travelogue in a Shooting-Gallery
Thirteen O’Clock
Reception Good
Confession Overheard in a Subway
King Juke
Elegy in a Theatrical Warehouse
Piano Tuner
Model for a Biography
End of the Seers’ Convention
The Joys of Being a Businessman
Public Life
A Tribute, and a Nightmare
Afternoon of a Pawnbroker

from Stranger at Coney Island and Other Poems (1948)
Stranger at Coney Island
4 A.M.
Castaway
The Juke-Box Spoke and the Juke-Box Said
Newspaperman
Bryce & Tomlins
Sherlock Spends a Day in the Country
Mrs. Fanchier at the Movies
The People v. the People
Irene Has a Mind Of Her Own
Minutes From the Chamber of Commerce
This Day
Long Journey

from New and Selected Poems (1956)
Family Album (1): The Pioneers
Family Album (2): Granny
Family Album (3): The Boat
Family Album (4): The Investigators

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ISBN: 978-1-931082-57-0 205 pages

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