Peter Davison (1928-2004)

On Wednesday, December 29, Peter Davison, the poetry editor of The Atlantic for thirty years, died at his home in Boston. During his time at the magazine Peter contributed numerous essays, reviews, travelogues, and poems. Below is a partial collection of his work.

Poems by Peter Davison, accompanied by RealAudio recordings:

"You" (2000)
"Best Friend" (2000)
"These Days" (2000)
"Falling Water" (1998)
"No Escape" (1997)
"On Mount Timpanogos, 1935" (1997)
"Like No Other" (1997)
"I Hardly Dream of Anyone Who Is Still Alive" (1995)
"The Unfrocked Governess" (1994)
"The Passing of Thistle" (1989)
"The Obituary Writer" (1974)
"Gifts" (1965)
"The Winner" (1958)

Articles from The Atlantic Monthly and Atlantic Unbound:

"The Poetry of Heartbreak" (July/August 2003)
The new collection of Robert Lowell's poems will doubtless stand from now on as The Work.

Soundings: Edwin Muir, "The Combat" (February 26, 2003)
Read aloud by Peter Davison, Maxine Kumin, and Brad Leithauser. Introduction by Peter Davison. (From Atlantic Unbound)

Interviews: "Language Makes the Senses One" (January 8, 2003)
Peter Davison talks with the poet Stanley Plumly, who believes that "language, at its best, is not easy." (From Atlantic Unbound)

Politics & Prose: "A Living, Breathing Eternal City" (June 26, 2002)
A new book on Rome will help travelers there experience the city that Romans know. (From Atlantic Unbound)

"Poetry Out Loud" (March 2002)
One of the biggest changes in modern poetry is its escape from the page to the performance.

"Reverberations of the Irish Boom" (November 2001)
Prosperity and its discontents come to Ireland's towns and countryside.

Soundings: Robert Lowell, "For the Union Dead" (April 11, 2001)
Read aloud by Frank Bidart, Peter Davison, and Robert Pinsky. Introduction by Peter Davison. (From Atlantic Unbound)

"New & Noteworthy" (February 2001)
A review of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: Poems and Other Writings.

"Province of the Past" (January 2001)
A sojourn in the French départment of the Lot, where 25,000 years of human history are clear to see.

"A Snoop at Bilbao" (October 2000)
All agog at Gehry's Guggenheim. (From Atlantic Unbound)

"Girl, Seeming to Disappear" (May 2000)
Francesca Woodman's work presents femaleness without satire or an agenda.

"New & Noteworthy" (May 2000)
A review of Alison Lurie's Familiar Spirits, a tribute to and critique of the relationship between James Merrill and his life-and-literary partner, David Jackson.

"A Certain Logic" (September 9, 1999)
An interview with Richard Wilbur. (From Atlantic Unbound)

"Italy's Greatest Seaport" (July 1999)
The glory that was Genoa is enchanting still.

"Poet of the Factory Floor" (April 1999)
A review of Philip Levine's new collection, The Mercy.

Poetry Pages: "Attending to the Night" (March 17, 1999)
A new selection of poems by the late L. E. Sissman revives the sound of a distinctive postwar American voice. Sissman's friend and longtime editor looks back at the poet's career. (From Atlantic Unbound)

Soundings: Robert Frost, "The Wood-Pile" (February 3, 1999)
Read aloud by Peter Davison, Donald Hall, and Maxine Kumin. Introduction by Peter Davison. (From Atlantic Unbound)

"The Burden of James Dickey" (August 1998)
A review of Christopher Dickey's Summer of Deliverance: A Memoir of Father and Son.

"'Discovering' Young Poets" (June 1998)
How some of the best-known poets of this century got that way.

"White Snow, Red Rocks" (October 1997)
Is Sedona, Arizona, cosmically energizing or simply refreshing?

Interviews: "The Experience of Pleasure; the Pleasure of Experience" (October 29, 1997)
An Interview with William Matthews. (From Atlantic Unbound)

Swimming Up into Poetry" (August 28, 1997)
The Atlantic's poetry editor reflects on the career of W. S. Merwin. (From Atlantic Unbound)

"Off the Maine Coast" (May 1997)
The island as foreign country; the vacationer as admiring expat.

"The Laureate as Onlooker" (March 1997)
A review of Robert Hass's poetry collection Sun Under Wood.

Poetry Pages: "Robert Frost in The Atlantic Monthly" (April 1996)
A selection of poems, introduced and read aloud by Peter Davison. (From Atlantic Unbound)

"The Difficulties of Being Major: the Poetry of James Dickey and Robert Lowell" (October 1967)
Who are the likely successors to Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, and Theodore Roethke? Peter Davison nominates Robert Lowell and James Dickey for the honor.

"Madness in the New Poetry" (January 1965)
"Is it only coincidence that poetry in the last two decades has come into the full uses of madness as of an instrument?"