Stevenson’s
Selected Poems 1956-86(OUP, 1987),
a selection made by the poet from her previous nine collections, can be seen as marking her formal arrival as an established, major figure in contemporary English poetry. The volume contains just over a hundred of the more than two hundred poems she had published to this date, as well as all of her longest and most ambitious work,
Correspondences: A Family History in Letters. The selection, first published in hardback and then in paperback two years later, received the Poetry Book Society’s recommendation for 1987.
Stevenson’s volume demonstrates the range and variety of the content and form of her poetry from the time of her earliest collection, Living in America (1965), up to that of her most recent, Winter Time (1986). It includes
777 words
Citation: Gordon, Ian. "Selected Poems 1956-1986". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 April 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=31607, accessed 26 April 2024.]
