Collected Works, Volume Three: 1987-1997

Like Nathaniel Hawthorne or William Carlos Williams, Black Mountain poet Metcalf accrues literary authority out of an acute sense of American history, as if that history were itself the fabled last frontier, a wilderness of wealth, massacre and movement to be traced, ultimately, in a verse as direct as the names on a map. In this volume, we are given two previously unpublished works, along with occasional pieces from the last 10 years: essays, plays, notes, short histories and a few unclassifiable jeux d'esprit that combine imaginative writing with exposition. Metcalf touches on subjects as diverse as Charles Olson (the unruly 6'10"" guru with whom Metcalf had a deep, ambivalent friendship); the Wizard of Oz (in a new piece, ""The Wonderful White Whale of Kansas""); Herman Melville (a constant reference for Metcalf, who is descended from him); and the history of West Virginia. One wishes for a few more nonexpository texts (like the wonderful ""Louis the Torch,"" a prose poem that mixes the whimsical tone of a children's book with a firefighter lingo and a series of mad riffs on Fraser's The Golden Bough), but even at his soberest, Metcalf's comments about, say, the current state of American poetry have a no-nonsense gruffness that will come as a relief for those who are tired of theory's spiny Latinisms. While probably not the best place to begin for readers who have never read Metcalf, those who know his work already will be excited to have these pieces all in one place. (Oct.)