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Robert Lowell (1917-77)


	      Father's Bedroom

	In my Father's bedroom:
	blue threads as thin
	as pen-writing on the bedspread,
	blue dots on the curtains,
	a blue kimono,
	Chinese sandals with blue plush straps.
	The broad-planked floor
	had a sandpapered neatness.
	The clear glass bed-lamp
	with a white doily shade
	was still raised a few
	inches by resting on volume two
	of Lafcadio Hearn's
	Glimpses of unfamiliar Japan.
	Its warped olive cover
	was punished like a rhinoceros hide.
	In the flyleaf:
	'Robbie from Mother.'
	Years later in the same hand:
	'This book has had hard usage
	On the Yangtze River, China.
	It was left under an open
	porthole in a storm.'

	[(from Life Studies) Selected Poems]
	Copyright (c) 1965 Faber and Faber

Biographical Notes

Bibliography

I've compiled the above information referring to some standard reference materials, including The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Poetry, Grolier Encyclopedia, etc.

Last updated: 5 December 2001

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