Edgar Bowers
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Edgar Bowers (
Biography
Bowers was born in
In Bowers's obituary, the English poet Clive Wilmer wrote, "The title poem of his 1990 collection, For Louis Pasteur, announces his key loyalties. He confessed to celebrating every year the birthdays of three heroes: Pasteur, Mozart and Paul Valéry, all of whom suggest admiration for the life of the mind lived at its highest pitch—a concern for science and its social uses, and a love of art that is elegant, cerebral and orderly." Another aspect of Bowers is highlighted by Thom Gunn on the back of Bowers's Collected Poems: "Bowers started with youthful stoicism, but the feeling is now governed by an increasing acceptance of the physical world." That 'physical world' encompasses sex and love which are refracted through his restrained and lapidary lines. The effect of this contrast is striking: at once balanced and engaged; detached but acutely aware of sensual satisfactions. Bowers's style owes much to the artistic ethos of Yvor Winters, under whom Bowers studied at Stanford, but his achievement far surpasses that of his mentor, and his other students, such as J. V. Cunningham.[citation needed] He often wrote in rhyme, but also produced some of the finest blank verse in the English language. He wrote very little (his Collected Poems weighs in at 168 pages), due no doubt to the careful consideration behind every single line. But that care never forecloses on the wilder aspects of human existence—the needs, joys and violence.
Bowers retired in 1991 and died in San Francisco in 2000.
References
- ^ "Edgar Bowers", Poetry Foundation. Retrieved March 19, 2014.
- "Edgar Bowers". Poets. Retrieved June 21, 2021.
Publications
- The Form of Loss (Alan Swallow, 1956)
- The Astronomers (Alan Swallow, 1965)
- Living Together (David R. Godine, 1973)
- For Louis Pasteur (Princeton University Press, 1989)
- Collected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1997)
External links
- Bowers's page at poets.org
- Clive Wilmer's Guardian obituary
- Edgar Bowers Collection at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library