WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Truth to tell, I don't much like James Agee's poetry. His prose contained poetry enough, and when he turned his hand to poetry he pressed too hard and overwrote. That said, it's good that the American Poets Project, run by the Library of America, has issued a volume of Agee's selected poems. Most of the contents derive from "Permit Me Voyage," his sole published book of poetry, from 1934.
Agee himself seems to have realized that his gifts extended more toward prose and narrative than the outright lyric. Later in life, he only dabbled in poetry - he died in 1955, just after completing the screenplay for "Night of the Hunter."
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Editor Andrew Hudgins has included some fascinating ephemera; there are some draft lyrics for Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" that show a certain flair, even if the metre wobbles all over the place: "Landscapes tire me, just to see; nudes are so explicit./The child on the Madonna's knee is overweight (or is it?)/To walk through that would be a bore,/And this, one hardly could adore, and her, one cannot visit."
Also worth a look is the Modern Library's new edition of Joseph Mitchell's "The Bottom of the Harbor," issued for Mitchell's centennial. Mitchell has always been regarded as one of the great reporters, although his quotes strike me as awfully polished. The book was originally published in 1959, and all of the pieces were included in "Up in the Old Hotel" in 1992. The book's collection of pieces from The New Yorker is unified by the fact that all of the pieces involve the New York waterfront.
In the pipeline ...
The Penguin Press has bought James MacGregor Burns' "Packing the Court," a history of the political manipulation of the Supreme Court. Look for it next year.
Mike Browning's Word of the Week ... slangam: a tall person.
