Selected Poems / R. Allen Shoaf Publishing (ePub)

Selected here are about one third of the poems I have written since the 1960s (or 270 poems-since it is so easy for the computer to count them). They represent, I think, the best of my work, both as a young poet, as yet unsure of himself, and as a more mature poet, further along in his journey on the way to becoming a writer. In these poems you'll hear my emerging voice composed of Wordsworth's "feeling intellect," Yeats's furious politics, Stevens's awe at language, and Heaney's commitment to each detail no matter how small. I try to honor them (and many others) even as I also try to speak in my own distinct, long-practiced voice.

The poems are presented in 10 categories. Categories are always tricky. Someone will list something in one category, and someone else will say but, surely, it belongs in this category instead. Debates can rage over such decisions and the minutiae they involve.

Each of the 10 categories I have chosen has its own Table of Contents. This device seeks to emphasize the inherent arbitrariness of all categorizing. Thus, to take the most obvious examples you will encounter in this book, many of the poems in the category of Eros could also be categorized under Politics. Many of the poems in the category of Science could also be categorized under Nature.

Thus, the category in which I place a given poem tells the reader a great deal about that poem and my understanding of its principal effect and, in most cases, its deepest affect, for me, personally. This, in turn, prepares the reader to disagree with me and understand the poem under a different category, to different effects and with different affects. In this manner, the reader can assert herself or himself over against my imagination and its expression.