Selected Poems

Harvey Shapiro's precise, understated lyrics have garnered praise in the U.S., the U.K., and in Israel. His early poems hailed by "The Nation" as "some of the best poems of our generation, " were notable in part because they gave new form to Jewish immigrant experience. This collection presents the best work from Shapiro's early books, including the classic poems "Battle Report, " on World War II, and "National Cold Storage Company, " on the death of John F. Kennedy, and a wealth of new poems, more sensual but no less wry. Shapiro sees life itself as a state of exile, and writes of the spaces where "for a moment, the light holds."