American Fantasies — 1983

Collected Poems, 1945-1981

“James Schevill's The American Fantasies has a Rushmore largeness, a compendious nature, straightforward presentations covering continent-vast experiences over a long period of time, formidable richness of true feelings in a monumental unity of tone and strength. The reacher lives in a large scope of lively realities, their objectivities compounded by layering speculations. This book has a dazzling number of magnificent poems.”

Richard Eberhart

“The American Fantasies gives a full view of James Schevill's poetic range. In a sense, he is a thoroughly modern, cosmopolitan, intellectually cultivated Edgar Lee Masters — very humane and essentially our most straightforward poet. He has a scholar's appetite for genuine knowledge, a playwright's feeling for vigorous detail illuminating personalities and situations, and a lyric poet's gift for catching emotional essences and nuances. And he is a grown up man writing about things that matter, though never in a contrivedly attitudinizing or boring discursive way.”

M. L. Rosenthal

In this collection, Schevill brings together a series of poems that he has been working on since his first book was published in 1947.

Diverse characters, both real and imaginary, reveal fantasies of American life and history. The dramatic voices of the characters contrast with the subjective voice of the narrator as he moves through time and space, remembering and anticipating.

James Schevill is a poet, playwright, and Emeritus Professor of English at Brown University. He has published numerous collections of poetry, many plays which have been produced in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and a novel based on his experiences in World War II. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, Margot.