J. V. Cunningham – författare

Described during his lifetime by Thom Gunn as 'one of the most accomplished poets alive, and one of the few of whom it can be said that he will still be worth reading in fifty years time' J. V. Cunningham was perhaps best known for his epigrams. Documenting his early style as an experimental modernist poet during the Depression and his remarkable ability as a translator The Poems of J. V. Cunningham also shows his later emergence as a master of the short, witty poems that made his name. Incorporating much of the material from his 1971 Collected Poems and Epigrams, The Poems of J. V. Cunningham was originally published in 1997 and also includes many of his later poems and translations, some of which appeared in periodicals but have never before been collected together in a book, and is a brilliant introduction to a forgotten poet who was described by the New York Times as 'one of the best poets in America'.

The lifework in verse of one of the century's finest and liveliest American poets, this collection of the poems of J. V. Cunningham (1911-85) documents the poet's development from his early days as an experimental modernist during the Depression to his emergence as the master of the classical "plain style" -- distinguished by its wit, feeling, and subtlety. Often identified with the epigram -- a genre in which he excelled as distinctively as Jonson, Herrick, and Landor -- Cunningham also wrote in a wide range of other poetic forms and was a remarkable translator. This collection, designed to show the poet's range and skill, incorporates the materials of his 1971 Collected Poems and Epigrams and restores their original arrangement. It also adds many of his later poems and translations and some uncollected pieces from his periodicals. Timothy Steele's notes and introduction assist in re-establishing Cunningham's position as a twentieth-century original, a poet who is remembered equally for emotional power and stylistic purity.