Katherine Anne Porter's Poetry

Katherine Anne Porter's Poetry makes available for the first time the complete poetic canon of one of America's most-celebrated writers. Revered for her award-winning short stories, Porter published just thirty-two poems and poetry translations, although she composed—and subsequently destroyed—hundreds. From fragmentary notes and letters found among Porter's papers, Darlene Harbour Unrue has recovered and edited eighteen unpublished poems. It is a significant addition to the Porter canon, the newly found poems join Porter's published verse, including the entire text of the now-rare Katherine Anne Porter's French Song-Book, to create a unique commentary on the writer's life and work.

Interspersed with photographs of Porter, the volume includes a substantial critical and biographical essay in which Unrue explains the significance of the poems and describes the relationship between Porter's poetry and fiction.

Porter's pleasant, original lyrics and translations serve as an index to the stages of her intellectual development and, in some cases, an intermediate phase in her creative process. According to Unrue, the value of the poems lies in their service as emblems for the crucial experiences of Porter's life and for the subjects, forms, themes, images, and symbols of her exquisitely wrought fiction.