Poetry
In the late 1960s, McKuen began to publish books of poetry, earning a substantial following among young people with collections like Stanyan Street & Other Sorrows (1966), Listen to the Warm (1967), and Lonesome Cities (1968). His Lonesome Cities album of readings won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording in 1968. McKuen's poems were translated into eleven languages and his books sold over 1 million copies in 1968 alone. McKuen has said that his most romantic poetry was influenced by American poet Walter Benton's two books of poems.
Read more about this topic: Rod McKuen
Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
“Do you know how poetry started? I always think that it started when a cave boy came running back to the cave, through the tall grass, shouting as he ran, “Wolf, wolf,” and there was no wolf. His baboon-like parents, great sticklers for the truth, gave him a hiding, no doubt, but poetry had been born—the tall story had been born in the tall grass.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“As civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)