Z-siteA Companion to the Works of Louis Zukofsky

LZ actively published many poems during his student years at Columbia University (1920-1924), mainly in two student journals, Varsity and particularly The Morningside, but also in a few other New York venues and one sonnet in Poetry (Jan. 1924). None of these poems were included in LZ’s first volume of short poems, 55 Poems, which collected poems composed between 1923 and 1935. Further poems written during his student years were gathered together as The First Seasons, but apparently never intended for publication, as indicated by the pseudonym LZ chose for the collection, Dunn Wyth. Although the typescript survives, only one short poem of this group was very belatedly published in LZ’s lifetime, “Vast, tremulous,” written in 1922 but preserved, apparently at CZ’s request, in “A”-18 (see “I Sent Thee Late”). A few poems written while LZ was still a student that did survive into 55 Poems; “tam cari capitis” (1923) is the earliest, although none were published until some years after their composition. There are more than two dozen poems written from the time LZ graduated from Columbia in 1924 until 1928 that were published but not included in 55 Poems. At this point, when he began working on “A”, there are very few uncollected poems aside from a few miscellaneous experiments: once LZ published a poem it was kept, eventually ending up in his collected short poems, ALL (1965-1966), and never revised subsequent to journal publication. See Journals and Publishers for brief notes on the venues that published LZ. Much of the following information comes from CZ’s Bibliography (1969).

LZ’s poems written as a student are now available in The First Seasons and Other Early Poems 1918-1924, edited Jeffrey Twitchell-Waas (2024). The introduction gives further background on these early poems and publications. 

“Sanity.” The Caliper (Oct. 1919): 15.

“The Sea,” “The Rain.” The Caliper (Nov. 1919): 15, 20.

“Dawn After Storm.” Varsity (Nov. 1920): 16; The Pagan (June-July 1921); New York Tribune [“from The Pagan“] (14 Aug. 1921): Part II, 1.

“Monody.” The Morningside 9.2 (Nov. 1920): 38.

“Youth.” The Morningside 9.3 (Dec. 1920): 99. Rpt. Ahearn (1983): 13.

“Walking down the White Sand Streets of Kamakura.” The Morningside 9.4 (Jan. 1921): [n.p.].

“Undulations.” The Morningside 9.5 (Feb. 1921): 152. Rpt. Ahearn (1983): 13.

“Wolf.” The Morningside 9.5 (Feb. 1921): 152.

“The Seer (To Rabindranath Tagore).” The Morningside 9.5 (Feb. 1921): 153; Rpt. Columbia Verse 1897-1924, ed. Cargill Sprietsma (NY: Columbia UP, 1924): 106.

“Sea-Nymph’s Prayer to Okeanos.” Varsity (Feb. 1921): 8.

“Dark Room.” Varsity (March 1921): 19.

“Silver Moment.” Varsity (March 1921): 19; The Poets of the Future: A College Anthology for 1920-1921, ed. Henry T. Schnittkind (1921): 28.

“The Faun Sees.” The Morningside 9.7 (April 1921): 239; The Pagan (Aug.-Sept. 1921): 7-8.

“Mood.” The Pagan (Oct.-Nov. 1921): 60.

“Earth Counts a Day: A Fantasy” [play]. The Morningside 10.1 (Nov. 1921): 1-8.

“Louis XIV Chamber (Metropolitan Museum).” The Morningside 10.2 (Dec. 1921): 42; Rpt. The Morningside 10.5-6 (April-May 1922): 158; Voices: A Journal of Verse 2.5 (Aug.-Sept. 1922): 168; Columbia Verse 1897-1924, ed. Cargill Sprietsma (NY: Columbia UP, 1924): 108.

“The Mystic Song.” The Morningside 10.2 (Dec. 1921): 42; The Morningside 10.5-6 (April-May 1922): 159.

“Autumn Sunrise.” The Morningside 10.3 (Feb. 1922): 57; The Morningside 10.5-6 (April-May 1922): 157; The Philadelphia Public Ledger (7 Oct. 1922).

“Sun and Rainbow.” The Morningside 10.4 (March 1922): 103. Rpt. Columbia Verse 1897-1924, ed. Cargill Sprietsma (NY: Columbia UP, 1924): 107-108.

“Moments.” The Morningside 10.5-6 (April-May 1922): 157; New York Tribune (21 May 1922): Part II, 1. Rpt. Scroggins Bio 34.

“Spare Us of Dying Beauty.” The Morningside 10.5-6 (April-May 1922): 158. Rpt. as “Of Dying Beauty,” Poetry 23.4 (Jan. 1924): 197.

“An Immortality.” The Morningside 11.1 (Nov. 1922): 10. Rpt. The Forum 69.2 (Feb. 1923): 1246.

“This Earth.” Rhythmus 1.3 (March 1923): 46.

“Glamour.” Rhythmus 1.3 (March 1923): 47. Rpt. The Morningside 12.3-4 (March-April 1923): 49 [printed as part I with “The Mystic” (see below) under the general title, “Vision”].

“Youth’s Ballad of Singleness,” The Morningside 12.3-4 (March-April 1923): 47-48. Rpt. Ahearn (1983): 14-16.

“The Mystic.”  The Morningside 12.3-4 (March-April 1923): 49-50 [published as part II along with “Glamour” (see above) under the general title, “Vision”].

“Reflections.” The Morningside 12.3-4 (March-April 1923): 50.

“A Parable of Time.” Two Worlds 1.1 (Sept. 1925): 4.

“The Sadness After.” Two Worlds 1.2 (Dec. 1925): 126.

“February 18, 1925.” The Lavender 3.6 (Jan. 1926): 20.

“Preface 1927,” “Critique of Antheil.” The Exile 4 (Autumn 1928): 78-84.

“Some one said, ‘earth,’” “The silence of the good.” The Dial 85.6 (Dec. 1928): 459. Rpt. A Dial Miscellany (1963): 333.

“No sound. But sun.” Blues 1.1 (Feb. 1929): 19.

“Across the smoke, over all past living,” “’And the strong men shall bow themselves,’” “And about these lights (East Rockaway, L.I.).” Blues 1.2 (March 1929): 43-44.

“(Spinoza in a Winter Season),” “September among the headstones.” The Criterion 8.32 (April 1929): 420-421.

“Autumn, then autumn—what of it?” “Finer was the dead artist’s hand,” “O autumn fields, if we should break.” Blues 1.4 (May 1929): 93-94.

“’He came also still,’” “All the stars have filled the heavens,” “Play lost banjos,” “Comes a day” [February 18, 1925″], “During lunch hour.” Poetry 34.3 (June 1929): 146-149.

“My watch! / Star-darknesses,” “And human heart-beats,” “(I wait for the train).” Blues 8 (Spring 1930): 14-15.

“It is well on this June night.” Pagany 1.2 (April-June 1930): 21-22.

“Always the May-day sun,” “The sun—sign on the wave.” Blues 9 (Fall 1930): 40-42.

“For a Thing by Bach.” Pagany 1.4 (Oct.-Dec. 1930): 23. Rpt. A Return to Pagany (1969): 144.

“(Awake!) / Propped on the earth.” Pagany 2.1 (Jan.-March 1931): 89. Rpt. A Return to Pagany (1969): 254.

“University: Old Time” [under pseudonym Joyce Hopkins]. Poetry 37.5 (Feb. 1931): 251.

“What are these smoke-stakes,” “O lowering belts.” Left 1.1 (1931): 40.

“N.Y., 1927.” Nativity 2 (Spring 1931): 20. Rpt. WCW/LZ 89-90.

“mirror fugue to ‘The Gnat’ by Carl Rakosi.” The Windsor Quarterly 1.2 (Summer 1933): 138-139 [published following Rakosi’s poem with linking remarks from LZ’s letter to Rakosi].

“[Sequence] from ‘The Writing of Guillaume Apollinaire.’” The Columbia Review 15.4 (May 1934): 16-17 [a collage of short selections from Apollinaire].

“‘March Comrades’ (Words for a workers’ chorus, from ‘”A”-8’).” The New Masses 27.6 (3 May 1938): 14 [Incorporated into “A”-8 (1938), but pruned in the final version of “A”-8.48-49. For the original version, go here].

“A foin lass bodders.” First Half of “A”-9. NY: Privately printed, 1940. 35-36. Rpt. Paideuma 7.3 (Winter 1978): 410-413; New Directions 39 (1979): 164-166; Selected Poems (2006) [although it is often assumed this translation of Cavalcanti’s canzone is into Brooklynese, LZ himself described it as “Oirish vernacular” (23 Feb. 1940 letter to EP)].

“Sorrow! Sorrow little child!” Incorporated into WCW’s opera The First President. The American Caravan (1936); Rpt. Many Loves and Other Plays (New Directions, 1961): 328.

“Julia’s Wild.” From Bottom: on Shakespeare (Austin, TX: The Ark Press, 1963): 393. Rpt. Poezie (experimentální poezie) (Prague: Edice Odeon, 1967); Artes Hispanicas 1.3-4 (Winter-Spring 1968); Selected Poems (2006).

“To Basil” (with CZ). Madeira & Toasts for Basil Bunting’s 75th Birthday. Ed. Jonathan Williams. Dentdale, UK: Jargon Society, 1975.

Translations:

André Salmon. Extracts included in René Taupin, “Three Poems by André Salmon.” Poetry 37.5 (Feb. 1931): 289-293 & Poetry 37.6 (March 1931): 333-339. A selection of the extracts included in this article from Salmon’s epic poem Prikaz on the Russian Revolution were included in A Workers’ Anthology, under the date 1919 as “an arrangement from ‘Prikaz.'” 

Guillaume Apollinaire. “The Gathering.” (LZ incorporated a non-lineated version of this translation into his play Arise, Arise (14, 18), and some of it made its way into “A”-24; the original lineated version was printed in “Discarded Poems” (1979): 158). See also “Sequence from ‘The Writing of Guillaume Apollinaire” (1934) above.

Alain Bosquet. “The Need to Have You” (from “L’Image Impardonnable”). View 1.3 (Spring 1943): 22. Rpt. WCW/LZ 311.

Alain Bosquet. “Pluck the Cascade” (“Cueillir la cascade”). Maryland Quarterly 1 (1944): 19.

Collaborations included in An “Objectivists” Anthology (1932):

Kenneth Rexroth, “Prolegomena to a Theodicy” [abridged by LZ, Aug. 29]: 189-192.

Jerry Reisman — L. Z. “After Les Collines (G. A.)”: 193.

R.B.N. Warriston, “Bora, Bora” [arranged by L.Z.]: 194-195.

William Carlos Williams, “March” [Words by William Carlos Williams, Re-written by L.Z., Feb. 16, 1930]: 196-200.