Not for Specialists: New and Selected Poems

Responsible for the emergence of American confessional poetry, W. D. Snodgrass won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize for his first book of poems, Heart's Needle. Mr. Snodgrass followed that astonishing work with After Experience (1967) and The Fuhrer Bunker, published by BOA Editions in 1977. The latter was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry and produced for The American Place Theatre.   Sitting Outside These lawn chairs and the chaise lounge of bulky redwood were purchased for my father twenty years ago, then plumped down in the yard where he seldom went when he could still work and never had stayed long. His left arm in a sling, then lopped off, he smoked there or slept while the weather lasted, watched what cars passed, read stock reports, counted pills, then dozed again. I didn’t go there in those last weeks, sick of the delusions they still maintained, their talk of plans for some boat tour or a trip to the Bahamas once he’d recovered. Under our willows, th