Pictures of the Floating World

Published seven years after her debut collection A Dome of Many-Coloured Glasses, Pictures of the Floating World (1919), is another dazzling volume of poetry from the Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Amy Lowell.

Divided into two sections; Pictures of the Floating World finds inspiration from both Japanese and Chinese poetry, with Lowell trying her hand at the hokku and Chinoiserie. In poems like “Reflections” and “Falling Snow,” Lowell paints delicate pictures of experiencing nature, with stanzas such as, “When I looked into your eyes / I saw a garden / With peonies, and tinkling pagodas / And round-arched bridges,” and, “The snow whispers about me / And my wooden clogs / Leave holes behind me in the snow / But no one will pass this way.” And in the second section, “Planes of Personality,” Lowell treads familiar ground with over a dozen lyrical poems, written just after the publication of her second collection, Sword Blades and Poppy Seed and up to April 1919.

With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition Amy Lowell’s Pictures of the Floating World is a classic work of American poetry reimagined for modern readers.