Delmore Schwartz

May 20, 2024 | poetryfoundation.org | Delmore Schwartz |Ange Mlinko |Lou Reed

As for the poète maudit, the French writer Barbey d’Aurevilly put it best: “There remains no choice for him but that between the muzzle of a pistol or the foot of the cross.” Redemption or extinction, Being or Nothingness: if the former is only afforded to a privileged elect, then one must recall that “the pistol” also offers itself in many guises. Silence is one path, even if it’s spent running guns in Ethiopia, as Rimbaud did.

Feb 21, 2024 | theparisreview.org | Delmore Schwartz

By Delmore Schwartz February 21, 2024 Today we are publishing a previously unpublished poem by the poet, critic, and editor Delmore Schwartz. Schwartz was hailed as a promising short story writer and poet in the generation that included Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, and John Berryman; a longtime editor at the Partisan Review, he was the youngest person ever to win the Bollingen Prize in 1959.

Apr 3, 2023 | poetryfoundation.org | Delmore Schwartz |Ange Mlinko

“the withness of the body” The heavy bear who goes with me,    A manifold honey to smear his face,    Clumsy and lumbering here and there,    The central ton of every place,    The hungry beating brutish one    In love with candy, anger, and sleep,    Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,    Climbs the building, kicks the football,    Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.