James and Christopher Dickey, London, August 1954
Some of James Dickey's finest poems have been made available through The Poetry Foundation, along with a thoughtful sketch of his life and work:
POEMS
At Darien Bridge
Buckdancer’s Choice
Cherrylog Road
Falling
For the Last Wolverine
In the Marble Quarry
In the Tree House at Night
The Heaven of Animals
The Hospital Window
The Lifeguard
The Performance
The Sheep Child
The Strength of Fields
For further insights into these poems, see this and related blogs. For instance, a post relevant to "Darien Bridge" can be found on Our Scrapbook. A note about "For the Last Wolverine" can be found below. And a photograph of James Dickey's grave, with the epitaph taken from "In the Tree House at Night" -- "I move at the heart of the world" -- is available at American Byways.
There will be much more. - C.D.
"Falling" was written before 911 but it describes the sheer terror and strange beauty of people falling almost acrobatically to their deaths. I know that Mr. Dickey died four years before that event but he was prescient in capturing the elegance and dignity of individuals facing their mortality with such grace.
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