Background
Francis, Robert was born on August 12, 1901 in Upland, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Ebenezer Fisher and Ida May (Allen) Francis.
(Gathered here in their entirety are the seven previous vo...)
Gathered here in their entirety are the seven previous volumes of Robert Francis poetry ― Stand with Me Here, Valhalla and Other Poems, The Sound I Listened For, The Face against the Glass, The Orb Weaver, Come Out into the Sun, and Like Ghosts of Eagles ― together with a group of recent poems, many not previously published but "saved" to end this volume on a note of newness. Because the original seven volumes are kept in chronological order, the reader can follow the author's journey from his quiet early work to poetry of greater color, warmth, vitality, vivacity, and sportiveness; and can note just when and where Francis' style becomes more and more diversified, with word-count, fragmented surface, and the celebration of words themselves. The book is graced with eight wood engravings by Wang Hui-Ming.
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(Marianne Moore said of Robert Francis's poetry, "He is so...)
Marianne Moore said of Robert Francis's poetry, "He is so penetrating, delicate, and wise, one goes away without having said a word, merely grateful to have received so much." Francis readers will welcome this new volume of verse which features poems in the whole technical gamut of Francis styles, including word count, with which he first delighted critics in Come out into the Sun. Like Ghosts of Eagles also presents for the first time entirely new Francis styles and techniques. Such poems as "Bloodstains," "Going to the Funeral," and "Silent Poem" are distinguished by "fragmented surface," a technique in which single words or short phrases are delivered without connecting tissue. Also new to his work are poems in which sentences are fused together in one continuous stream, as in "The Mountain," "The Righteous," and "The Peacock." The works are equally diversified in mood, ranging from the bitterly satirical through the elegiac, lyrical and playful, to poems of pure celebration. "Few others writing today work with such fragile sounds and with such delicate, almost pastel perceptions," wrote David Clark upon first reading the manuscript of Like Ghosts of Eagles.
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Francis, Robert was born on August 12, 1901 in Upland, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Ebenezer Fisher and Ida May (Allen) Francis.
Bachelor of Arts, Harvard University, 1923; Master of Education, Harvard University, 1926; Doctor of Humane Letters, University Massachusetts, 1970.
He would later attend the Graduate School of Education at Harvard where he once said that he felt that he"d come home. He lived in a small house he built himself in 1940, which he called Fort Juniper, near Cushman Village in Amherst, Massachusetts. One of his poetic mentors was Robert Frost, and indeed Francis"s first volume of poems, Stand Here With Maine (1936), displays a poetic voice eerily reminiscent of Frost"s own in carefully crafted nature poems.
Frost once said: "poetry is the only acceptable way to say one thing and mean another." Francis published very little during the 1940s–1950s.
He decided that "for better or worse, I was a poet and there was really nothing else for me to do but go on being a poet. lieutenant was too late to change even if I had wanted to was my most central, intense and inwardly rewarding experience." In 1960, Francis published The Orb Weaver, which revived his reputation as a poet.
Francis uses hidden meanings in his poems, which suggest another way that Frost made an impression on Francis"s poetry. In later volumes, Francis found a voice distinctively his own, relaxed in meter and characterized by puns, word-plays, slant rhymes, and repetitions of key words.
Aside from one long narrative poem in Frostian blank verse, Francis"s poetry consists largely of concise lyrics, somewhat limited in thematic range but intensely crafted and deeply personal.
Frost would later say that Robert Francis was America"s best neglected poet. He often wrote about nature and baseball. His autobiography, The Trouble with Francis, was published in 1971 and details his struggle with neglect.
Francis died July 13, 1987.
(Gathered here in their entirety are the seven previous vo...)
(Marianne Moore said of Robert Francis's poetry, "He is so...)
(Third book of the Pennsylvania-born author. Contains 69 p...)
(Book by Francis, Robert)
(Book by Francis, Robert)
(Book by Robert Francis)
(poetry.)
(1st)
Fellow Academy American Poets. Honorary member Phi Beta Kappa.