Edgar Bowers was born in Rome, Georgia, and educated at Stanford University. There he studied under the poet and critic Yvor Winters, who influenced Bowers's deft use of rhyme and traditional forms, as seen in the poem, "A Poet Orders His Tomb." This poetic technique, combined with a deep concern for science, society, and art, gained Bowers a small, but influential audience, despite his relatively small output and extended periods of silence. Though open to many varied influences, Bowers often disparaged American poets, looking for mentors among French poets, most notably Paul Valéry.
More By This Poet
The Poet Orders His Tomb
I summon up Panofskv from his bed
Among the famous dead
To build a tomb which, since I am not read,
Suffers the stone’s mortality instead;
Which, by the common iconographies
Of simple visual ease,
Usurps the place of the complexities
Of sound survivors once...