The Poems Of Henry Abbey

Author : Henry Abbey
Publisher : CreateSpace
ISBN 13 : 9781518725067
Total Pages : 28 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (25 download)

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Download or read book The Poems of Henry Abbey written by Henry Abbey and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-10-21 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Henry Abbey (July 11, 1842 - June 7, 1911) was an American poet who is best remembered for the poem, "What do we plant when we plant a tree?" He is also known for "The Bedouin's Rebuke." In much of his work, Abbey displays traditional characteristics of the nineteenth-century American poetic approach. He uses inversions and has fluid feel; most commonly known for his "Disregard women, acquire currency" motto, his style takes notable influence from that of English poet James Henry Leigh Hunt. "The Bedouin's Rebuke" can be compared to Hunt's "Abou Ben Adhem," which employs similar metric flow. Abbey was fond of simple subject matter, such as remorse or happiness; his poetry often forms an anecdote or short story which builds in intensity, reaches a climactic struggle between two opposing entities, and then ends in an implied moral. His poetry is reminiscent of the Romantic Era, with particular influence from Shelley and Coleridge. He remains relatively well known with the poetry-reading public, as well as a respected figure in literary circles. Henry Abbey (11 July 1842 - 7 June 1911), poet, was born in Rondout (now a part of Kingston), New York, the son of Stephen Abbey, a merchant of farm products, and Caroline Vail. His family was moderately successful and able to support his attendance at Kingston Academy, the Delaware Literary Institute in Delhi, New York, and the Hudson River Institute across the river in Columbia County, but the uncertain grain and feed business was insufficient to enable him to attend college. When he was twenty or so, Abbey secured work as assistant editor of the Rondout Courier and for a time held the same job with the Orange (N.J.) Spectator, while contributing verses to many periodicals. In 1862 he financed the publication of a slim volume of his verse, May Dreams, dedicated to William Cullen Bryant, who generously allowed himself to be quoted in it as recognizing in the author "the marks of an affluent fancy." Abbey's verse was relatively simple in prosody, language, and topic, much of it celebrating nature and the beauties of his region. Abbey's next collection, Ralph, and Other Poems (1866), also appeared at the author's expense. By then his work was appearing regularly in such national magazines as Appleton's, the Overland Monthly, and Chambers', and Abbey had become a member of literary circles locally and in New York City, some hundred miles south of Rondout. A part of the "Pfaff Group"-literary people, including Walt Whitman, Thomas Nast, and Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne), who frequented the cellar of Pfaff's Cafe at 653 Broadway in New York City. Abbey was a friend of the naturalist John Burroughs and was active in arranging speaking engagements in Rondout for such celebrities as Mark Twain. Despite all his literary associations and his frequent publication in periodicals, Abbey never seriously attempted to earn a living as a writer. In 1864 he became a teller in the Rondout Bank, and soon afterward he joined his father and brother Legrand in their grain, flour, and feed business. In 1865 Abbey married Mary Louise DuBois of Kingston; they had no children. A successful businessman, he remained a diligent and prolific poet-while also remaining active in the Authors Club and the Shakespeare Society in New York as well as in the New York Produce Exchange-and produced a collection every three or four years until his death. His work was more frequently narrative, often set in classical antiquity, and increasingly didactic from volume to volume. In 1869 he published Stories in Verse, again at his own expense. Ballads of Good Deeds, and Other Verses appeared in 1872 under the imprint of the commercial publisher D. Appleton in New York City, and so did City of Success, and Other Poems in 1884. In 1888 Abbey brought out, once more at his own expense, a miscellany entitled Bright Things from Everywhere: A Galaxy of Good Stories, Poems, Paragraphs, Wit and Wisdom Selected by Henry Abbey."