Selected Poems — 2005

By Lee Gerlach

"This poetry is of tremendously high concentration and lucidity. Each one of Gerlach’s poems constitutes, as it were, an autonomous, self-contained world, a sort of biosphere or spacecraft, if you will, fully equipped for a long passage through the cosmos. . . . It is a world indeed that every poet would love to create—I, for one, certainly would—and that every reader would love to inhabit."

Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky

Lee Gerlach’s Selected Poems is a rigorous culling from the life's work of a remarkable and prolific poet. Written over a period of fifty years, the poetry of Lee Gerlach is a full spectrum of human expression, vision, and experience. It reflects a wisdom and maturity of character that has been constant during the entire span of Gerlach’s writing career. This selection, chosen by the poet, is the retrospective of a true twentieth-century American original.

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A student of Yvor Winters at Standford and himself a legendary teacher, Lee Gerlach is the author of several collections of poetry. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including The Paris Review, Partisan Review, and Poetry. He lives in San Diego.