Michael
Benedikt :
Early Books
of Poetry
THE BODY (Wesleyan, l968) and SKY (Wesleyan, l970)
This is the first page of a Website with Selected
Poems from Benedikt's first two collections of poetry.
[Modified 8/1/05. Prior 4/04 & 9/01]
Benedikt, l968
Bio. Info & Photo of Benedikt in
l998
About Benedikt
& Websites
Site
Contents
Pages Within This BODY-SKY
Website
Poems are from first & second books by
poet & were written in the 1960's.
They appear in l998-2004 updates. Range of revisions of verses--fine-tunings
on up.
Quick-Links to Pages
Selections from The
Body
'Dark Love Poems'
'Spooky'
Selections
from Sky
Thematic
Index
Page 1--Home Page
This Page--with 1968 & 1998 Benedikt photos &
Comprehensive Bio & this Site-Map.
Page 2--Selections from THE BODY
Selected poems from a much-published contemporary US Poet's lst
book of poetry.
Surrealism-attuned, risk-taking Lyrical & Narrative & poems + poems
in some unusual forms.
[ Sidelights (1) A number of poems
in The Body (1968) have lines long enough to form stropes. They verge
on prose poetry.
Sky has still more like that--bringing up the question of the similarity
of, or differences between,
verse poems & prose poems. Benedikt wrote prose poems exclusively from
circa 1971 to 1977.
(2) Many Body poems have a
relationship to the visual arts. He reviewed gallery shows in NYC from 1964-1973
for Art News,
& from 1965 to 1967 for Art International. He was particularly
active as art critic during the years when these 2 books were written. ]
Subjects in The Body range from droll to dark. Black humor abounds.
A reviewer for Time magazine termed Body poems "a highly serious
form of play."
Page 3--'Dark Love Poems'
From The Body. College level & College age for the above
page please.
Page 4--'Spooky Poems for Halloween'
Especially Eerie Selections from The Body for the Halloween
season--& also for year-round fans of horror
poetry.
(About. com Featured Site Award '99-'04)
Page 5--Selections from SKY
Selected Verse from Sky (1970), Benedikt's 2nd poetry book.
While The Body includes a number of poems written in long lines
which extend into strophes & verge on prose poetry, most of the poems
in Sky explore that format. After Sky (l970), Benedikt wrote
prose poems--a genre which of course dispenses with the line-break
altogether--exclusively for about 7 years. He published two collections in
the prose poem form: Mole Notes (1971); and Night Cries (l976).
Links at this page to sites with selected prose poems from those books,
here. He
returned to verse with The Badminton At Great Barrington (1980). [
BTW, names of the many, many 1960's literary magazines in which poems from
both Body and Sky were first published, are given at this site's
closing page (p. 6--Thematic
Index ].
Page 6--Thematic Index to THE BODY and
SKY
Subject-Index to topics of poems in Benedikt's 1st 2 poetry books.
Index includes thumbnail pix of Body and Sky book-jackets,
& acknowledgment pages citing the 1960's print media literary magazines
in which the poems first appeared. Thematic Index sorts by title & theme
(subject matter), all poems in both books. Accompanying semi-copious notes
focus on key aspects of both books. Emphasis of the notes so far is on the
relationship of the poetry to the visual arts & multi-media of various
kinds. (Benedikt reviewed gallery shows in NYC circa 1964-1973, & was
particularly active as an art critic
during the years when these 2 first books were written. He also edited 4
anthologies of 20th century drama, & wrote a few plays & other theatre
pieces of his own). Index can be a Modern Poetry Course classroom teaching
resource or an aid to Undergrad or Graduate students writing term-papers
or theses on 20th Century poetry. Might also be useful to those writing papers
on l960's Cultural History. Readers interested in the background of Benedikt's
early poetry might also enjoy the photos from author's 1960's
Archive.
Top of Site Contents
Top of This
Page
Benedikt Biography &
Bibliography
Derived from bios published over the years
in
Who's Who In The World, Who's
Who In America, WW East, WW Entertainment,
& Who's Who In American Art, etc.
Benedikt, l998
Michael Benedikt has published five
collections of poetry, most recently The Badminton at Great Barrington;
or, Gustave Mahler & The Chattanooga Choo-Choo, a book about the
joys and sorrows of love (University of Pittsburgh Press, l980). His first
four collections, Night Cries (prose poems, l976); Mole Notes
(prose poems, l971); Sky (l970); and The Body (l968), were
published by Wesleyan University Press.
Anthologies of poetry under his editorship include the landmark modern poetry
anthologies The Prose Poem: An International Anthology (Dell/Laurel,
l976); and The Poetry of Surrealism (Little Brown, l974). Benedikt
is also the editor of four collections of plays, including three volumes
of plays from the European "Theater of The Absurd" co-edited with theater
critic George E. Wellwarth: Modern French Theatre: The Avant-Garde, Dada,
& Surrealism (E.P. Dutton, l964; in U.K., as Modern French Plays,
Faber Ltd., l964); Post-War German Theatre (Dutton, l967; in U.K.,
Macmillan Ltd., 1968); and Modern Spanish Theatre (Dutton, l969).
He's the editor of Theatre Experiment: American Plays (Doubleday,
l967).
Benedikt is a former Associate Editor
of Art News and Art International, for both of which he reviewed
1960's art world exhibitions in the NY Metro area. Affiliated in the early
l960's with poets of "The New York School," some of whom were also poet-art
critics, he was briefly Managing Editor for the first N.Y. School literary
magazine, Locus Solus. Selections from the poet's art criticism appear
in book form in The Grand Eccentrics: 19th-Century French Symbolist
Painters, edited by John Ashbery and Thomas B. Hess (Collier Books, 1971);
and in the anthology Minimalist Art, ed. Gregory Battcock (E.P. Dutton,
l968). A former Poetry Editor of The Paris Review, his editorial
selections are represented in The Paris Review Anthology, ed. George
A. Plimpton (Norton, l990). He was also a Contributing Ed. for
The American Poetry Review and The Prose Poem: An International
Journal.
His own work appears in ca. 65+ anthologies of modern and contemporary US
poetry, the first anthology appearances of Body and Sky poems
being in The Major Young Poets (Ed. Al Lee, World Publishing Co, l968)
& The Young American Poets (Ed. Paul Carroll, Follet Publ. Co.,
l968). His uncollected l980's & l990's poetry has appeared in (among
many other literary magazines) Agni, Antioch Review, Iowa Review,
Jerusalem Review, Lips, Michigan Quarterly Review, The
New Republic, New York Quarterly, Partisan Review, Washington
Square, and several times in The Paris Review--his last appearance
there being with a long poem in honor of Einstein in summer '99 (#151). Grants
and awards for his poetry have over the years included an NEA
Fellowship, a NY State Council On The Arts Grant, and a
Guggenheim Grant. He's also won an NEA single-poem award, and,
for several poems from The Body in 1968, the Poetry magazine
Bess Hokin prize for Best Group of poems published thst year.
In the later l960's and in the '70's
Benedikt taught as Visiting Prof. in the
Dept of English & CW (Creative Writing) at Bennington, Sarah
Lawrence, Hampshire, and Vassar Colleges; and at Boston
University. Over the years, he's also given more than 100 readings from
his verse / prose poems around the USA--including a videotaped
"Mini-Retrospective" performance given in l986, at invitation of The Library
of Congress. More recently, he's read from his poetry at various Barnes
& Noble 'superstores' in the NY Metro area.
His poems have been praised by writers as diverse as James Dickey
and Erica Jong. Benedikt is a graduate
of Columbia University (1961, M.A.Comparative Lit.), and NYU's Washington
Square College (l956, B.A. English & Journalism). The poet lives in
Manhattan, NYC. Email re poems at this site: benedit1@aol.com
1968 Photo by Herbert Fogelson
l998 Photo by Laura Boss
Top of Bio
Click Up to Site Contents--Pages Within This
BODY-SKY Website
Next
Page of This Site--'Selected Poems from THE BODY'
ABOUT BENEDIKT
Info re background of Benedikt 's Websites
via feature article at About.com
'The Compleat Michael Benedikt--Poet Laureate of The Net'
More About Author
at
>Benedikt Pages--The
Academy of American Poets
OTHER BENEDIKT WEBSITES
SELECTIONS FROM OTHER BENEDIKT
POETRY BOOKS
NIGHT CRIES, author's 4th book of
poetry
Brief Prose
Poems
Prose Poems
& Microfictions
Benedikt's 5th & most recent book of
poetry
The Badminton at Great Barrington
*
A Benedikt
manuscript-in-progress
The Thesaurus & Other New Verse
Other Pages Of This
Website
Next
Page of This Site--'Selected Poems from THE BODY'
Top
Poems and poetry resources from
everypoet.com
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