Authors: J. D. McClatchy, J. D. McClatchy
ISBN-13: 9780375407895, ISBN-10: 0375407898
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Date Published: October 1999
Edition: (Non-applicable)
John Hollander is the author of seventeen previous books of poetry. His first, A Crackling of Thorns, was chosen by W. H. Auden as the 1958 volume in the Yale Series of Younger Poets. He has written eight books of criticism, including the award-winning Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse and The Work of Poetry, and edited or coedited twenty-two collections, among them The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, and (with Anthony Hecht, with whom he shared the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 1983) Jiggery-Pokery: A Compendium of Double Dactyls. Mr. Hollander attended Columbia and Indiana Universities and was a Junior Fellow of the Society of Fellows of Harvard University. He has taught at Connecticut College and Yale, and was a professor of English at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is currently Sterling Professor emeritus of English at Yale. In 1990 he received a MacArthur Fellowship.
J. D. McClatchy is the author of four earlier books of poems, Scenes from Another Life (1981), Stars Principal (1986), The Rest of the Way (1990), and Ten Commandments (1998). His literary essays are collected in White Paper (1989) and Twenty Questions (1998). He is the editor of The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry (1990) and The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry (1996), as well as a co-editor of James Merrill's Collected Poems (2001) and Collected Novels and Plays (2002). The author of several opera libretti, McClatchy is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He teaches at Yale University and is editor of The Yale Review.
Christmas is both a holiday and a holy day, and from the start it has been associated with poetry, from the song of the seraphim above the manger to the cherished carols around the punch bowl. This garland of Christmas poems contains not only the ones you would insist on finding here ("A Visit from St. Nicholas," "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming," and "The Twelve Days of Christmas" among them) but such equally enchanting though lesser-known Yuletide treasures as Emily Dickinson's "The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman," Anthony Hecht's "Christmas Is Coming," Rudyard Kipling's "Christmas in India," Langston Hughes's "Shepherd's Song at Christmas," Robert Graves's "The Christmas Robin," and happy surprises like Phyllis McGinley's "Office Party," Dorothy Parker's "The Maid-Servant at the Inn," and Philip Larkin's "New Year Poem."
Foreword | 11 | |
The Annunciation | 17 | |
Advent | 18 | |
Advent Calendar | 19 | |
Christmas Eve | 25 | |
Christmas Eve | 28 | |
from In Memoriam | 29 | |
Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913 | 31 | |
The Oxen | 33 | |
Jest 'Fore Christmas | 34 | |
A Visit from St. Nicholas | 37 | |
Upon Christ His Birth | 45 | |
On the Morning of Christs Nativity | 46 | |
Nativity | 57 | |
The Nativity | 58 | |
New Prince, New Pomp | 60 | |
The Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ | 62 | |
For the Nativity | 64 | |
Christmas | 65 | |
The Maid-servant at the Inn | 67 | |
Joseph | 68 | |
The Mother of God | 69 | |
Shepherd's Song at Christmas | 70 | |
The Three Kings | 72 | |
Journey of the Magi | 76 | |
The Adoration of the Kings | 78 | |
The Three Holy Kings | 80 | |
Carol of the Three Kings | 83 | |
The Masque of Christmas | 87 | |
The True Christmas | 92 | |
Old Christmastide | 94 | |
Christmas at Sea | 98 | |
The Christmas Tree | 102 | |
Our Christmas Tree | 104 | |
December | 105 | |
Christmas | 113 | |
The Burning Babe | 115 | |
'The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman' | 117 | |
A Christmas Hymn | 119 | |
Christmas | 120 | |
Sonnets at Christmas | 121 | |
An Old Song Ended | 123 | |
A Christmas Poem | 125 | |
Illumination | 127 | |
The Mahogany Tree | 131 | |
Christmas | 133 | |
The Dark Christmas on Wildwood Road | 136 | |
Lady Selecting Her Christmas Cards | 139 | |
City Christmas | 140 | |
Office Party | 141 | |
Christmas is Coming | 145 | |
The House of Christmas | 147 | |
Christmas Bells | 149 | |
A Nativity | 151 | |
Christmas Trees | 153 | |
A Christmas Card, After the Assassinations | 154 | |
Christmas in Biafra (1969) | 155 | |
A Christmas Ghost-story | 158 | |
Christmas in India | 159 | |
A Christmas Sonnet | 162 | |
A Carol | 163 | |
The Christmas Robin | 164 | |
Carol | 167 | |
An Ode of the Birth of Our Saviour | 168 | |
On Christmas Day to My Heart | 170 | |
A Christmas Carol | 172 | |
from In Memoriam | 175 | |
French Noel | 177 | |
Christus Natus Est | 180 | |
A Carol | 182 | |
A Lullaby | 183 | |
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night | 184 | |
Good King Wenceslas | 186 | |
O Little Town of Bethlehem | 188 | |
We Three Kings | 190 | |
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear | 192 | |
Silent Night | 194 | |
Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming | 195 | |
The Cherry-tree Carol | 196 | |
I Saw Three Ships | 199 | |
I Sing of a Maiden | 201 | |
A Child This Day is Born | 202 | |
To-morrow Shall be My Dancing Day | 204 | |
Nowell Sing We | 205 | |
The First Nowell | 206 | |
The Holly and the Ivy | 208 | |
Green Grow'th the Holly | 210 | |
The Twelve Days of Christmas | 211 | |
God Rest You Merry Gentlemen | 212 | |
Wassail, Wassail | 215 | |
Here We Come A-wassailing | 217 | |
from For the Time Being | 221 | |
Untrimming the Tree | 224 | |
Burning the Christmas Greens | 226 | |
New Year's Eve | 230 | |
New Year | 232 | |
New Year's Day | 235 | |
New Year Poem | 236 | |
Twelfth Night | 239 | |
Twelfth Night | 241 | |
Epiphany | 243 | |
Acknowledgments | 245 | |
Index of Authors | 249 |