Collected Poems of Jean Toomer

This volume is the only collected edition of poems by Jean Toomer, the enigmatic American writer, Gurdjieffian guru, and Quaker convert who is perhaps best known for his 1923 lyrical narrative Cane. The fiftyfive poems here most of them previously unpublished chart a fascinating evolution of artistic consciousness.The book is divided into sections reflecting four distinct periods of creativity in Toomers career. The Aesthetic period includes Imagist, Symbolist, and other experimental pieces, such as Five Vignettes, while Georgia Dusk and the newly discovered poem Tell Me come from Toomer' s Ancestral Consciousness period in the early 1920s. The Blue Meridian and other Objective Consciousness poems reveal the influence of idealist philosopher Georges Gurdjieff. Among the works of this period the editor presents a group of local color poems picturing the landscape of the American Southwest, including Imprint for Rio Grande. It Is Everywhere, another newly discovered poem, celebrates America and democratic idealism. The Quaker religious philosophy of Toomers final years is demonstrated in such Christian Existential works as They Are Not Missed and To Gurdjieff Dying.Robert Joness clear and comprehensive introduction examines the major poems in this volume and serves as a guide through the stages of Toomers evolution as an artist and thinker. The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer will prove essential to Toomers admirers as well as to scholars and students of modern poetry, Afro-American literature, and American studies.