Bly, Robert

Loving a Woman in Two Worlds

ISBN: 0385274181
Garden City, NY: The Dial Press, 1985. First Edition. "The woman stays in the kitchen, and does not want | to waste fuel by lighting a lamp, | as she waits | for the drunk husband to come home. | Then she serves him | food in silence. | What does the son do? | He turns away, | loses courage, | goes outdoors to feed with wild | things, lives among dens | and huts, eats distance and silence, | he grows long wings, enters the spiral, ascends." ("Fifty Males Sitting Together," pg. 4). This collection of poems by the National Book Award-winning American poet, essayist and activist Robert Bly (1926-2021) explores the meaning of mature love in a sustained meditation on faithfulness, on the sustenance of intimacy, and on grief as the door to deep emotion. Much of Bly's writing focuses on what he saw as the particularly troubled situation in which many males find themselves. He understood this to be a result of, among other things, the decline of traditional fathering which left young boys unguided through the stages of life leading to maturity. He claimed that in contrast with women who are better informed by their bodies (notably by the beginning and end of their menstrual cycle), men need to be actively guided out of boyhood and into manhood by their elders. Feeling unseen and blaming the feminist movement, Bly started the Mythopoetic men's movement, a body of self-help activities and therapeutic workshops and retreats for men undertaken by various organizations and authors in the United States from the early 1980s through the 1990s. The group activities used in the movement were largely influenced by ideas derived from Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961), known as Jungian psychology, from which the use of myths and fairy tales taken from various cultures served as ways to interpret challenges facing men in society. The poem "Fifty Males Sitting Together" (pgs. 3-5) is a perfect encapsulation of Bly and his mindset at the time. From the collection of Albert Glover (b. 1942), the great American scholar, bibliographer, author & publisher who is the foremost living authority on literary giant Charles Olson (1910-1970), with whom we're honored to be acquainted. Hardcover Original with Sewn Binding in unclipped Dust Jacket: First edition, third printing as indicated by number sequence at copyright page. A most collectible Bly book of poetry in one of its rarest forms with distinguished provenance. Book in relatively fine-to-very fine condition with mild age-toning mostly to fine edges of front, back covers & spine; minor bumping to corners of same; one occasion of spot-staining to front cover at spine along vertical crease; minor age-toning to text block. Interior fine-to-very fine with very mild age-toning and bumping of corners to page leaves. Dust jacket fine-to-very fine with mild rubbing, scratching and creasing mostly to fine edges and corners of front, back covers and spine; one miniscule enclosed tear to front near spine and one 1/4 inch enclosed tear to back near spine. Fine-Very Fine. [Item #8273]

Price: $35.00