Robert Bly is the author of numerous books of poetry, nonfiction, and translations, including The Light Around the Body, winner of the National Book Award for poetry, and Iron John: A Book About Men, which was an international bestseller. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Author photo by Ann Arbor)
In his richest and most varied collection of poems to date, Robert Bly mines a lifelong fascination with poetic form. The poems in Talking into the Ear of a Donkey range from free verse to Bly's uniquely American version of the famous ghazal form. These poems, emotionally nuanced, wise, and far-ranging in their intellectual and cultural reference, stand at the very height of Bly's considerable achievement. They show Bly in his ninth decade, still full of amazement and transcendence.
"The kind of volume anyone should read for the exquisite pleasure of encountering poetry completely under its creator’s tremendous control."
—The Rumpus
"This consummately beautiful and moving book carries the craft, wisdom, and gleaming image-hoard of a lifetime master. Robert Bly's signature gifts leap from every page: extravagant freedoms; mystery-embrace; astonishment; the twin pole stars of wild-won instruction and profound acceptance; and, always, always, the unshakable love Bly holds for this spinning globe and all who share it."
—Jane Hirshfield
"Joyous, heartbreaking, earthy as a waterhole 'muddied by animals,' and fiercely honest about the emptiness of loss, 'the last few sips of coffee before we go to the funeral.' I love this best of all Robert's books."
—Coleman Barks
W. W. Norton
