Coda: Last Poems - Softcover

The existence of these poems was not known until recently. Two years after the poet's death, his wife found them in his desk in a handwritten notebook and in typescript. Nor was most of his later work generally known by the reading public. After a spat with his long-term New York publisher, Random House, Shapiro had to buy back all rights to his own poems. He then proceeded to publish new work in books that received relatively limited distribution.Only two of the poems in this final volume of his work have been published.'Even in his late seventies, Shapiro was writing well, as these poems aptly demonstrate. Whenever he dated his manuscripts or typescripts, I have supplied the dates. Sophie Wilkins believed most of the undated poems in the first section were written in 1984, the first year they were together. Occasionally I have corrected a spelling or added punctuation, but largely the poems stand as Shapiro left them, in his desk drawer in uptown Manhattan, in an apartment overlooking the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, where his last and best Muse lived until her demise' - from the Foreword.

KARL SHAPIRO authored a novel, an autobiography, several books of essays, and over twenty volumes of poetry. Among his many prizes and awards, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the Bollingen Prize, and the Shelley Memorial Prize, and he served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (a title that was changed to American Poet Laureate in 1985) for two years. He died in 2000. ROBERT PHILLIPS of Houston, who is responsible for compiling, editing, and introducing this final book of poems by Karl Shapiro, is the author or editor of some thirty volumes of poetry, fiction, criticism, and belles lettres and publishes in numerous journals. A professor of English, he was director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston from 1991 to 1996. In 1998 he was named a John and Rebecca Moore Scholar at the university.