Collected Poems

Starred review from August 15, 2016
Ponsot (Easy) sees her signature mixture of delight and devastation traced beautifully in this comprehensive volume. With a poet who can take many years between publishing books, it’s satisfying to finally see the arc of her long career alongside new poems. Readers can follow her evolution as the self-serious and formal work of her City Lights debut, True Minds, evolves through sparser variations on the sonnet to the ambitious, sprawling work of her second and most famous collection, Admit Impediment, which came out 25 years later in 1981. It is a treat to observe Ponsot’s mischievousness throughout, especially when that trait knocks against the morose, as in “Sois Sage O Ma Douleur,” in which she writes, “I say/ I am too old, tired, crazy, cold—to/ say nothing of ashamed—/ to try.” Ponsot is a master of the delayed revelation, delighting in play and surprise that only becomes more sharply timed as her career progresses. The book concludes with a small collection of her new work, spirited as ever, as when she writes, “Ninety is old, I/ keep telling myself, so behave! And I’m older, 94. It is the look of happy.” Longtime fans and new readers alike will find enchantment, wit, and wisdom in this collection, which cements her reputation as a major American poet.

Starred review from August 1, 2016

Open Ponsot's new Collected, a gathering up in one volume of six decades of the Brooklyn-born poet's published work, and at once you feel the exhilaration--acceleration--of her written lines. In rich, riotous, immersive language from start to not-yet-finished, the now 95-year-old Ponsot reveals what poetry can be. A passage here or there may resist you: "here the spacespoil/ zoomer dizzied me, here/ hackles rose on those atop/ the tower among whom then/ was heard/ the last/ laugh from the live haunt of him." But stretch and roll with Ponsot to the end, if only for the surprise of seeing where and how she lands. More likely, you will be stopped in your tracks by the breadth and depth of what she brings to the page: "What I say when I talk in my sleep/ I trust you with, so you may guess that across/ my inner sky (as yours, I'd say)/ the vertical longing soars." VERDICT As Ponsot said once in an interview: "The one price you pay for poetry is time." Yours will not be misspent here.--Iris S. Rosenberg, New York

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