The Collected Poems of Delmore Schwartz

Book excerpt: The first complete collection of the poetry of Delmore Schwartz, “the most underrated poet of the twentieth century" (John Berryman). When Delmore Schwartz published his first short story, “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” in Partisan Review in 1937, he became an instant literary celebrity. After the appearance of his first book (by the same name), he was inundated with praise. The famed poet Allen Tate wrote to him, “Your poetic style is beyond any doubt the first real innovation that we’ve had since Eliot and Pound,” and T. S. Eliot himself wrote Schwartz a letter asking him to compose more poetry. The brilliant start of his career is matched perhaps only by its tragic end, a lonely death after an extended period of alcoholism, depression, and derangement. Today, more than fifty years after his death in 1966, Schwartz is often remembered for the tragedy of his life rather than for the innovation and sad brilliance of his greatest work. This book brings together all of Schwartz’s poetry for the very first time, from his groundbreaking debut collection to his unpublished late work, which he kept writing until his death. Accompanied by Ben Mazer’s illustrative notes and introduction, The Collected Poems of Delmore Schwartz offers readers the long-awaited opportunity to rediscover one of the most influential and original poets of the twentieth century. As Mazer writes in his introduction, “It is the poems that count now. And it is the glory of the poems that survives here, awaiting new life.”