Subject Index to Michael Benedikt's THE BODY and SKY

Thematic Index of Poems in Michael Benedikt's first two books of Poetry:

THE BODY (Wesleyan U. Press, l968) & SKY (Wesleyan U. Press, l970)

This site indexes by subject all of the poems in both books.


General Note:

This is a site-in-progress re two books written in the mid-&-later l960's.
A ground-breaking, watershed period in both America's political history
and in the Arts generally, it was also a highly explorative period in Benedikt's poetry.
THE BODY and SKY initiate the esthetic explorations to be found in Benedikt's later books
as well as other later writings, some of which are represented on The Web.


Site Contents:

1. Subject-Index: General List of Categories/Themes in THE BODY and SKY

Click for Index Categories

   2. Subject-Index: Specific poem-references to which Categories apply

(in work & nearing completion)

3. Original 'Acknowledgment Pages' for THE BODY and SKY as printed by book publisher

Click for Acknowledgment Pages

4. Brief Benedikt Biography/Bibliography

Click for Brief Benedikt Biography

5. Some Current Benedikt Links

[Note: Benedikt's 3rd  poetry book is Mole Notes (Wesleyan, l971) . His 4th poetry book is Night Cries (Wesleyan, l976). They are books of prose poetry. External links listed at the end of this page reference Night Cries.]

Click for External Links re Benedikt


Index Categories for THE BODY and SKY:

The Four Elements,  Childhood and Youth and Growing Up,  Gardens and Their Symbolic Meanings,

Love and Eroticism,  Time,  Space,

Spirituality,  Philosophy,  Business and Finance,  Social Concerns,

Language and Esthetics,  Film and Theatre,  References to l960's Art and Artists and Rock Music,

& Poems that go to Classifiable Extremes:

(1) Poems in Unusual Forms;  (2) Poems with Multiple or Radical Dictional Shifts;

(3) Highly Surrealistic Poems

Note: Indexing of the latter three Categories will include brief commentary


(THEMATIC INDEX  INCLUDING LISTS OF POEMS/TOPICS TO BE INSERTED HERE)


Click Back to Top


Acknowledgment Pages

(Transcribed below are the original Acknowledgment Pages for THE BODY and SKY)


THE BODY (Wesleyan University Press, l968)

Copyright © l962, l964, l965, l966, l967, l968 by Michael Benedikt

Many of these poems have previously appeared elsewhere. For permission to reprint them here, and for the assignments of copyrights, grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the following: Angel Hair, Ambit, Art & Literature, Choice, Lugano Review, Minnesota Review, Paris Review, Quarterly Review of Literature, The Sixties, and Translatlantic Review.

"Before Going On," "An Enormous Dangling Sack-Like Net," "The Eye," "Fraudulent Days," "Inside The Mystery," "Motions," "Pink Beds," "Procession," "The Saint," "Some Litanies," "Some Old Men," "A Strained Credulity," "Tears," "Time," "Thoughts," "Tulips," "The Villain," "A Visual Face," and "The Wings of the Nose" were first printed in Poetry.

(Hardbound & Paperback)

Library of Congress Catalog #: 68-27539


SKY (Wesleyan University Press, l970)

Copyright © l967, l968, l969, l970 by Michael Benedikt

Many of these poems have previously appeared in periodicals. For permissions to reprint and for copyright assignments, grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors and publishers of Ambit, Bennington Review, Chelsea, Kayak, Kenyon Review,London Magazine, Modern Poetry Studies, New American Review, Paris Review, The  Seventies, Stand, Sumac and The World.

"Money," "On Earth," "Psalm I," "Psalm II," "Psalm III," "Psalm IV," "The Sky," "The Statue Speaks, " "Water," and "The Wonders of the Arm" first appeared in Poetry.

Hardbound: ISBN: 0-8195-2052-7

Paperback: ISBN: 0-8195-1052-1

Library of Congress Catalog #: 75-120257


Click Back to Top


Brief Benedikt Biography

Complete bio. appears in Who's Who in America)

Michael Benedikt has published five collections of poetry: The Badminton at Great Barrington; or, Gustave Mahler & The Chattanooga Choo-Choo (University of Pittsburgh Press, l980); and with Wesleyan Univ. Press, Night Cries (prose poems, l976); Mole Notes (prose poems, l971); Sky (l970); and The Body (l968). Anthologies of poetry under his editorship are The Prose Poem: An International Anthology (Dell/Laurel, l976); and The Poetry of Surrealism (Little Brown, l974). His anthologies of plays include three volumes co-edited with George Wellwarth: Modern French Theatre: The Avant-Garde, Dada, & Surrealism (E.P. Dutton, l964); Post-War German Theatre (Dutton, l967); & Modern Spanish Theatre (Dutton, l969). He is also the editor of Theatre Experiment: American Plays (Doubleday, l967). He is a former Associate Editor of Art News and Art International. A former Poetry Editor of The Paris Review, his editorial selections are represented in The Paris Review Anthology (Norton, l990). His recent, l990's poetry has been published in New York Quarterly, Agni, Iowa Review,  Jerusalem ReviewLips, Michigan Quarterly Review, The New Republic, and Partisan Review; and is forthcoming in The Paris Review. His work appears in numerous anthologies of US/British poetry. His grants and awards include an NEA Fellowship, and a NY State Council On The Arts Grant, and a Guggenheim Grant. He has given many readings from his poetry at colleges & bookstores, etc., around the USA; and has taught at Bennington, Sarah Lawrence, Hampshire, and Vassar College/s, and at Boston University.


Click Back to Top

Click for Selected Poems from THE BODY. l998 versions.

Click back to Parent Site for this page, Michael Benedikt: Early Books of Poetry: THE BODY and SKY,  listing several additional Benedikt links.


Selected External Links

                   Link to Prose Poems by Michael Benedikt, a site with medium-sized prose poems                     including updates of poems originally published in Benedikt's fourth book of poetry, Night Cries, in l997/8    versions; and a review of  Benedikt's prose poetry from The London Times Literary Supplement  

  Link to Prose Poems by Michael Benedikt: Brief Prose Poems , a site with additional,
recent updates of Night Cries