The Movie at the End of the World — 1973 ·

Collected Poems

By Thomas McGrath

For more than 30 years Thomas McGrath has held a special place among American poets. His lyric and rhapsodic strengths are unequalled. His use of rhetoric and of the sonorities of poetic speech have been compared to Hart Crane and Dylan Thomas.

McGrath's work has become more significant in recent years, as a new generation of pets with intense political concerns have discovered his work. McGrath's sense of “practical poesie”—of poetry involved in the daily business of the world has become and important source for young contemporary poets. A sense of place and of the durable influence of the land and human work is pervasive here.

The Movie at the End of the World is a selection from all of McGrath's earlier books and all the shorter poems the poet wants saved.