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“James Dickey’s fourth volume, Buck dancer’s Choice, establishes him as one of the most important younger poets of our time. It has a passionate quality, an intense clarity, a cleansing of the totality of being into a kind of carefully separated madness that makes it one of the remarkable books of the decade.”—Joseph Bennett, New York Times Book Review
Poetry that is a blend of superb gift and subtle imagination by a mature and original poet at his finest.
Whoever looks to a new book by James Dickey for further work in an established mode, or for mere novelty, is going to be disappointed. But those who seek instead a true widening of the horizons of meaning, coupled with a sure-handed mastery of the craft of poetry, will find this latest collection satisfying indeed.
Here is a man who matches superb gifts with a truly subtle imagination, into whose depths he is courageously traveling—pioneering—in exploratory penetrations into areas of life that are too often evaded or denied. “The Firebombing,” “Slave Quarters,” “The Fiend”—these poems, with the others that comprise the present volume, show a mature and original poet at his finest.
“One of the remarkable books of the decade”—Joseph Bennett, New York Times Book Review
“When he is at his best, as he is in [‘The Firebombing’], Dickey reminds one of the fire sermons in the work of T.S. Eliot, but unlike Eliot, Dickey is offering us a way out of the agony through his own vision of memory and hope. He travels away from the fire, taking us with him.”—Sandra Hochman, Book Week
“Dickey’s work is full of dramatic energy, superb observation, and honesty. He remains one of the foremost poets of his generation.” —The Virginia Kirkus’ Service
National Book Award 1966
Melville Cane Award 1966
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JAMES DICKEY, born in Atlanta and educated at Vanderbilt, abandoned a successful business career shortly after the publication of his second book. He has been poet-in-residence at Reed College and at San Fernando Valley State College, and has lectured and given readings at many other institutions. In the spring of 1966 he was named consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress for the year 1966-1967. His published collections include Into the Stone(1960), Drowning With Others (1962), and Helmets (1964), two latter in the Wesleyan Poetry Program.
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