Add this copy of Another Look: to cart. $10.99, good condition, Sold by Books From California rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Simi Valley, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1976 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Add this copy of Another Look: to cart. $12.49, very good condition, Sold by Wonder Book - Member ABAA/ILAB rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Frederick, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1976 by Holt McDougal.
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Very Good. Very Good condition. Good dust jacket. A copy that may have a few cosmetic defects. May also contain light spine creasing or a few markings such as an owner's name, short gifter's inscription or light stamp.
Add this copy of Another Look: Poems to cart. $13.00, very good condition, Sold by nelsonsbooks rated 2.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Chazy, NY, UNITED STATES, published 1976 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Add this copy of Another Look: to cart. $17.00, like new condition, Sold by Murphy-Brookfield Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Iowa City, IA, UNITED STATES, published 1976 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Add this copy of Another Look to cart. $19.00, very good condition, Sold by Longhouse, Pub. & Bookseller rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from West Brattleboro, VT, UNITED STATES, published by Holt, 1976.
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SIGNED: Near fine in like dustjacket with some age toning to cover. Otherwise text bright throughout. Inscribed on the first flyleaf by the poet and fully signed.
Add this copy of Another Look: Gregory, Horace to cart. $24.95, very good condition, Sold by isbnbooks rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Eugene, OR, UNITED STATES, published 1976 by Holt McDougal.
Add this copy of Another Look to cart. $27.00, like new condition, Sold by Between the Covers-Rare Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Gloucester City, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1976 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Add this copy of Another Look: Poems to cart. $27.00, very good condition, Sold by Between the Covers-Rare Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Gloucester City, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1976 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
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Very Good in Very Good jacket. First edition. A touch of sunning to the top of the boards, and foxing to the top edge, very good or better in a very good dust jacket with sunning to the spine and the top of the panels, and a dampstain at the foot of the spine partially affecting the panels.
Add this copy of Another Look to cart. $37.00, like new condition, Sold by Between the Covers-Rare Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Gloucester City, NJ, UNITED STATES, published 1976 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
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Seller's Description:
Fine in Near Fine jacket. First edition. Fine in near fine dustwrapper with spine sunned. Advance Review Copy with slip laid in and a handwritten letter from the editor B.A. Bergman to poet Daniel Hoffman. Poetry.
Add this copy of Another Look: to cart. $41.33, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 1976 by Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
The American poet Horace Gregory (1898 -- 1982) is little read today, but his works have meant a great deal to me over the years. I came across his early poems of the New York City downtrodden while in law school in the early 1970s: and somewhere along the line I purchased his Collected Poems published in 1965. I still remember purchasing his last book of poetry, "Another Look" when finding it on the shelves of a small bookstore in 1976. There are few places where one could make such a find today. Both the "Collected Poems" and "Another Look" are still in my library.
Gregory was born in my home town of Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Irish ancestors that had come to Wisconsin in the mid-19th Century. He taught English for many years at Sarah Lawrence College and translated Ovid and Catullus from the Latin in addition to his work as poet, essayist and critic. Gregory received the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1965. A small selection of his work is included in the second volume of the Library of America's anthology "American Poetry: The Twentieth Century".
It had been some time since I had read Horace Gregory, and I wanted to take Another Look at the time-worn volume on my shelves with that name consisting of twenty-one short poems. Some of the poems I remembered brought back memories. Others were difficult when I read them at first and remained difficult on this revisit. I came to love the book again.
The poems tend to be unrhymed but metered. Gregory's works are highly allusive and literary with most of the allusions involving the classics. Allusions to Greek and Roman mythology abound in many poems while some of the works specifically involve figures such as Empedocles, Epictetus, and Ovid and his story of Corrina and the cutting of her hair. There are also allusions to figures such as James Whistler, the American biographer Paul Murray Kendall's book about Louis XI, Gregory's friend, the classical scholar Dudley Fitts, and the house at which the infamous "Birth of a Nation" was filmed.
Many of the poems are in form of dramatic monologues that Gregory had used from his earliest poems. Others use multiple speakers interlaced with commentary from the poet. Some poems have a short initial comment setting the stage. The many references in the poetry make it difficult but with readings become poignant and effective. The predominant tone is elegiac. The poems are clearly the work of an elderly poet facing death and also looking back at his life. Just as the book offered the reader Another Look at Gregory's poetry, it offered the poet another look at himself. Some of the poems express despair and loss with the contemporary world. But there is also a strong sense of hope.
The poem I remembered best from "Another Look" was "To a Last Wedding Guest". This poem is in part in the words of a young beautiful woman in white at her wedding. She is still a virgin, and she celebrates her marriage and impending sexual union with her husband in the form of the wedding cake, giving something of herself to her guests as she will give herself that evening to her husband. The final guest arrives late as the celebration is ending. The poem concludes:
"The belated wedding guest who had missed the bride
Stands in the hall
As though he had seen the reflection on her face,
Heard lips that say, 'Or early guest or late,
Eat of my cake. It is my life.
It is why you came.
It is my gift to everyone,
Even to the last fragment on a covered plate.'"
I didn't remember the final two poems in the book from my earlier readings but they moved me upon taking Another Look. The poem "& Testament" tells the story of Gregory's grandfather, an Irish mathematician who moved to Wisconsin and published a book in Ireland about the resources of his new home. The poem alludes to his early life, his travel to Wisconsin, his death, and his spiritual testament. In "April Morning", the final poem, the poet celebrates his birthday, looks back on his life, and meditates on impending death:
"It is not the season, but the inevitable
return of seasons that unshapes the days, the hours
caught in the mind, and builds them new again."
Revisiting a long-lost book is finding an old dear friend. I was moved at returning to take Another Look at the poems of Horace Gregory. His work deserves to be remembered.
