On This Side of the River: Selected Poems

Includes a selection of poems from Bewilderment, winner of the 2012 National Book Award, the most prestigious literary prize in the US. Click here for more details.

David Ferry is one of the most eminent poets writing in the US today, as highlighted recently by his award of the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Prize, one of the country's most prestigious literary prizes. Ferry's work, however, is almost completely unknown on this side of the Atlantic. In On this Side of the River, his first UK Selected Poems, Waywiser presents a large sampling of his work both as original poet and unrivalled translator.

"The best poet now writing in America." Christopher Ricks

"Now that most of a lifetime's poems and translations have been gathered together into one book, many more readers must now realize what a masterly poet we have had among us. There can be few contemporary poets who would not desire this man's art and scope." Robert Mezey David Ferry was born in New Jersey in 1924. His works include the University of Chicago Press collections Dwelling Places (1993) and Of No Country I Know: New and Selected Poems and Translations (1999), a finalist for the New Yorker Book Award, along with translations of Virgil, Horace and Virgil, and his widely-celebrated Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse (Bloodaxe, 1993). His many awards include the 2011 Ruth Lilly Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Academy of American Poets. In 1998 he was elected a fellow to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.