Thomas McGrath (poet)

Thomas Matthew McGrath, (November 20, 1916 near

McGrath wrote mainly about his own life and social concerns. His best-known work, Letter to an Imaginary Friend, was published in sections between 1957 and 1985 and as a single poem in 1997 by Copper Canyon Press.^[3]

Works

• First Manifesto, A. Swallow (Baton Rouge, LA), 1940.
• "The Dialectics of Love", Alan Swallow, editor, Three Young Poets: Thomas McGrath, William Peterson, James Franklin Lewis, Press of James A. Decker (Prairie City, IL), 1942.
• To Walk a Crooked Mile, Swallow Press (New York City), 1947.
• Longshot O'Leary's Garland of Practical Poesie, International Publishers (New York City), 1949.
• Witness to the Times!, privately printed, 1954.
• Figures from a Double World, Alan Swallow (Denver, CO), 1955.
• The gates of ivory, the gates of horn, Mainstream Publishers, 1957 (2nd edition Another Chicago Press, 1987
  ISBN 978-0-9614644-2-4
  )
• Clouds, Melmont Publishers, 1959
• The Beautiful Things, Vanguard Press, 1960
• Letter to an Imaginary Friend, Part I, Alan Swallow, 1962
  • published with Part II, Swallow Press (Chicago, IL), 1970
  • Parts III and IV, Copper Canyon Press, 1985
  • compilation of all four parts with selected new material,
    ISBN 978-1-55659-077-1
• New and Selected Poems, Alan Swallow, 1964.
• The Movie at the End of the World: Collected Poems, Swallow Press, 1972.
• Poems for Little People, [Gloucester], c. 1973.
• Voyages to the Inland Sea #3: Essays and poems by R.E. Sebenthal, Thomas McGrath, Robert Dana, Center for Contemporary Poetry, 1973.
• Voices from beyond the Wall, Territorial Press (Moorhead, MN), 1974.
• A Sound of One Hand: Poems, Minnesota Writers Publishing House (St. Peter, MN), 1975.
• Open Songs: Sixty Short Poems, Uzzano (Mount Carroll, IL), 1977.
  ISBN 978-0-930600-00-6
• Letters to Tomasito, graphics by Randall W. Scholes, Holy Cow! Press (St. Paul, MN), 1977.
  ISBN 978-0-930100-01-8
• Trinc: Praises II; A Poem, Copper Canyon Press, 1979.
• Waiting for the Angel, Uzzano (Menomonie, WI), 1979.
  ISBN 9780930600075
• Passages toward the Dark, Copper Canyon Press, 1982.
  ISBN 978-0-914742-63-0
• Echoes inside the Labyrinth, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1983.
  ISBN 978-0-938410-13-3
• Longshot O'Leary Counsels Direct Action: Poems, West End Press, 1983.
  ISBN 978-0-931122-28-6
• Selected Poems, 1938-1988, Copper Canyon Press, 1988.
  ISBN 978-1-55659-012-2
• This coffin has no handles: a novel, Thunder's Mouth Press, 1988.
  ISBN 978-0-938410-63-8
• Death Song, edited by Sam Hamill, Copper Canyon Press, 1991.
  ISBN 9781556590351

• Ian M. Parsons, editor, Poetry for Pleasure, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1960.
• Donald Hall, editor, New Poets of England and America, Meridian, 1962.
• Walter Lowenfels, editor, Poets of Today: A New American Anthology, International Publishers, 1964.
• Lucien Stryk, editor, Heartland: Poets of the Midwest, Northern Illinois University Press (DeKalb, IL), 1967.
• W. Lowenfels, editor, Where Is Vietnam?, Doubleday, 1967.
• Christmas 1968 : 14 poets, Black Rabbit Press, 1968.
• ISBN 978-0-5532-6263-6
• Morris Sweetkind, editor, Getting into Poetry, Rostan Holbrook Press, 1972.
• Seymour Yesner, editor, 25 Minnesota Poets , Nodin Press, 1974.
• David Kherdian, editor, Traveling America, Macmillan (New York City), 1977.
• The Norton Introduction to Literature, 2nd edition, Norton (New York City), 1977.
• ISBN 978-0-87156-368-2
  .
• ISBN 978-0-8040-0370-4
• Herman J. Berlandt, editor, Peace or perish : a crisis anthology, Poets for Peace, 1983.
• Morty Sklar, editor, Editor's Choice II : Fiction, Poetry & Art from the U.S. Small Press : Selections from Nominations Made by Editors of Independent, Noncommercial Literary Presses and Magazines, of Work Published by them from 1978 to 1983, Spirit That Moves Us Press, 1987.
  ISBN 9780930370237
• ISBN 9780060924201
• ISBN 9781560252276
• Estelle Gershgoren Novak, editor, Poets of the Non-existent City : Los Angeles in the McCarthy Era , University of New Mexico Press, 2002.
  ISBN 9780826329516
• ISBN 978-0-1953-9877-9

Best of all, Letter to an Imaginary Friend licks its fingers and burps at the table. Polite it is not--and the better for it when McGrath turns from his populist vitriol to what may be his most abiding talent: that of bestowing praise--grace, even--on the common, the unruly, the inconsolable, those McGrath chose to side and sing with and for whom "the world is too much but not enough with us.[4]

References