Praise for Hayden Carruth:
"Something Hayden Carruth does as well as any writer is to treat the reader as a friend, and to provide, through his poetry, hours of good company."—
The New York Times Book Review
"One of the lasting literary signatures of our time."—
Library Journal
, starred review
"Carruth, like Whitman, like Chaucer, is large—he contains multitudes. Dip into his work anywhere, and there is life—and death—as stirringly felt and cogitated as in some vast, Tolstoyan novel."—
Booklist
Hayden Carruth's
Last Poems
is a triumph—a morally engaged, tender, and fearless volume that combines the last poems of his life with the concluding poems from each of his previous volumes. Introduced by Stephen Dobyns,
is a moving tribute to a towering and beloved figure in American poetry.
From "Father's Day":
I don't know what fathers are
Supposed to do, although the calendar says
This is "Father's Day." But the day is gloomy
And not at all conducive to visiting or
Celebrating. I know the best thing fathers in
Their prime can do is to make daughters and
More daughters; we can never have enough.
Daughters are our best protection against
Loneliness and the absurd atrocities of
Foreign policy . . .
Hayden Carruth
(1921–2008) lived for many years in northern Vermont, then moved to upstate New York, where he taught at Syracuse University. He won the National Book Award for
Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey
, and his
Collected Shorter Poems
received the National Book Critics Circle Award.