James Dickey

Four Atlanta businessmen--Lewis Medlock, Ed Gentry, Bobby Trippe and Drew Ballinger--decide to canoe down a river in the remote northern Georgia wilderness before it is dammed. Lewis, an experienced outdoorsman, is the leader; his close friend Ed has been on several trips but lacks Lewis' machismo, while Bobby and Drew are novices. En route to their launch site, the men (Bobby in particular) are condescending towards the locals, who are unimpressed by the "city boys". At a local gas station Drew, with his guitar, engages a young banjo-playing boy in a musical duel ("Dueling Banjos"). Although Drew enjoys it, the boy does not acknowledge him when prompted for a congratulatory handshake.

Deliverance

An American tail gunner parachutes from his burning airplane into Tokyo near the close of World War II and begins a harrowing odyssey culminating in a violent test of manhood

To the White Sea

During the Second World War, Frank Cahill, recently blinded, is compelled to learn about his son's mysterious demise and enigmatic life

Alnilam

James Dickey's creativity as a poet is well known. But there have been few opportunities for his readers to become familiar with the full dimensions of his mind, with the thoughts and perceptions that lie just outside the matter of his poetry. Sorties brings together the contents of a journal kept by Dickey for several years and six discerning essays on poetry and the creative process. The journal follows Dickey's mind as it alights on a wide array of topics, ranging from the work of his colleagues to the plotting of a new novel, from the onset of old age to pride over accomplishments in archery and guitar playing. Dickey can be blunt in his opinions, as when he states that "a second-rate writer like Norman Mailer will sit around wondering what on earth it is that Hemingway had that Mailer might possibly be able to get." But the journal also reveals a great capacity for sympathy, as when Dickey tells of his father's long illness, and a revealing candor--"I am Lewis," he writes of his novel Deliverance, "every word is true." The journal is at its most revealing, however, when Dickey discusses the craft of poetry. "It is good for a poet to remember," he writes, "that the human mind, though in some ways very complicated, is in some others very simple." This awareness that poetry must understand the simplicities of human existence is a recurring concern for Dickey, and he writes with disdain of the "brilliant things" that too often clog poetry, the stale self-absorption that warps the perceptions of many poets. In the essays that make up the second part of the book, Dickey also focuses on poetry, exploring the relation of the poet to his works, the promise of a younger generation of poets, and the place of Theodore Roethke as the greatest American poet. Wide-ranging and acute, Sorties opens up for the reader the discriminating mind that lies behind some of the most accomplished and memorable poetry written in America in this century.

Journals and New Essays

Sorties

Presents the tale of an American pilot shot down during the firebombing raid on Tokyo near the end of World War II, whose escape becomes a violent journey of self-exploration

Hubert Shuptrine

Jericho

Hendrik Marsman

The Zodiac

Jeffrey Meyers

Stephen Crane

A classic story of the Civil War follows one soldier's transformation from recruit to survivor and is accompanied by four additional tales, including "The Upturned Face" and "The Blue Hotel."

The Red Badge of Courage and Four Stories

A child hunts the animals of the world with a pop gun and the snare of his imagination.

Tucky the Hunter

"In The One Voice of James Dickey, Gordon Van Ness skillfully documents James Dickey's growth from a callow teen interested primarily in sports to a mature poet who possessed literary genius and who deliberately advanced himself and his career. The letters from 1942 through 1969 depict Dickey gradually establishing a self-identity, deciding to write, struggling to determine a subject matter and style, working determinedly to gain initial recognition, and eventually seeking out the literary establishment to promote himself and his views on poetry. The letters also portray a complex personality with broad interests, acute intelligence, and heightened imagination as well as a deep need to re-create his past and assume various roles in the present." "From Dickey's extensive correspondence, Van Ness has selected not only those letters that best reveal the chronological development of Dickey's career and his conscious efforts to chart its course, but also those that portray his other interests and depict the various features of his personality. The letters are grouped by decade, with each period placed in perspective by a critical introduction. The introductory sections offer a psychological understanding of Dickey's personality by identifying the needs and fears that affected his actions. They also explain the American literary and cultural scene that Dickey confronted as he matured. Together, the letters and commentary yield a sense of Dickey's complex personality - both the man as a writer and the writer as a man - while arguing that he remained "one voice."" "Because how a writer writes - the appearance of a writer's words on a page - makes a statement, the letters are reproduced here without alterations. There are no silent deletions or revisions; the original spelling and punctuation have been preserved. Dickey's letters gathered in The One Voice of James Dickey portray a poet's consciousness, chronicling its growth and revealing its breadth. They do not contain the whole truth, but they are what we have."--Jacket.

His Letters and Life, 1942-1969

The One Voice of James Dickey

William A. Bake

The author reveals the paradise of the Southern mountains through the monologue of an old mountain man; colorful photographs display the beauty and wonder of this remote area

A Voice from the Southern Mountains

Wayfarer

The Achievement of James Dickey: a Comprehensive Selection of His Poems with a Critical Introduction

A narrative poem in which a young girl battles with the elements she finds in the night.

A Poem in Four Parts

Bronwen, the Traw, and the Shape-shifter

Marvin Hayes

The acclaimed poet's reflections on fifty-three Old and New Testament passages are accompanied by Marvin Hayes' distinctive etchings

The Bible, a New Vision

God's Images

Housman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Robert Frost, Walter de la Mare, and Robert Bridges.

Classes on Modern Poets and the Art of Poetry

A book of new poems by a major writer is an event. A book of new poems that marks a different, more powerful approach is cause for celebration. “What I looked for here,” James Dickey tells us about The Eagle’s Mile, “was a flicker of light ‘from another direction,’ and when I caught it – or thought I did – I followed where it went, for better or worse.” In this new work, Dickey edges away from the narrative-based poems of his previous books and gives instead more primacy to the language in which he writes. His poetry gains flexibility, and his poetic power becomes even surer and more clearly expressed. “I have experimented,” Dickey writes, “and look forward to experimenting more.”

The Eagle’s Mile

In Self-Interviews, James Dickey speaks thoughtfully and with candor of his life as a poet. He recalls how poetry came to be his career, tracing its growing importance in his life from his youth in Georgia through his years overseas with the Air Force, as a student at Vanderbilt, as a teacher, and as a successful advertising executive. He also tells of how he reworked the life around him into poetry, of the fleeting impressions and lingering thoughts that were the seeds of some of his finest poems, including “Cherrylog Road,” “The Lifeguard,” “The Fiend,” and “Falling.” Following only a rough outline, Dickey recorded these spontaneous monologues in June, 1968, not long after the publication of his Poems, 1957–1967, which collected the work from his first five books. These musings, then, date from what was in many ways a natural vantage point on his artistic development, a moment ripe for recollection and analysis. Dickey uses the occasion not only to look back on his career but also to consider his preferences and goals as a poet. “I would like to be able to write a poetry,” he reveals, “that would have something for every level of mind, something that would be accessible to a child and would also give college professors and professional critics something, maybe something they haven’t had much of recently, or indeed ever.” This book is not so much the autobiography of a poet as it is the biography of a poet’s work. Unique and revealing, Self-Interviews is an intimate profile of a decade in the art of one of America’s finest poets.

Self-Interviews

The Strength of Fields

For over three decades, James Dickey has been one of the nation’s most important poets and a prominent man of letters. The Whole Motion collects his poetic oeuvre into a single volume: 235 poems from his first book, Into the Stone (1960), to The Eagle’s Mile (1990), along with previously uncollected poems and unpublished “apprentice” works.

James Dickey

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