John Ciardi

"These posthumously discovered poems radiate the great spirit and wit of a celebrated man of letters. . . . Ciardi's respect for life and death is palpable his voice an eloquent echo." -Publishers Weekly

Isaac Asimov, one of the world’s best-selling authors, a scientist, academic, romantic, and original thinker, here jousts and jests with his old opponent in the war of the words, John Ciardi. Ciardi, of course, is a poet, world authority on and premier translator of Dante, teacher, critic, and formidable manufacturer and wielder of the word-weapon.

John Ciardi published his first poem in Poetry magazine in 1939. The forty year since have been fruitful ones. His translation ofThe Divine Comedy is the definitive American rendering. His How Does a Poem Mean?, now in a new edition with revisions by Miller Williams, has introduced hundreds of thousands of students to the liveliness of poetry. Above all, John Ciardi is a poet and one of the voices of our literature. This is his fourteenth volume of poems. It demonstrates again that there is a body of poetry specific to his voice, eye, and manner.