"After the Death of a Nephew&q...

"After the Death of a Nephew" is an early metrical composition by Galway Kinnell. It appeared in the Fall-Winter 1953 issue, well before his first main division What a Kingdom It Was (1960) The poem's meditation upon the possibility of transcendence in the face of mortality anticipates a theme Kinnell will turn back to again and again through the whole extent of the course of his career; its loosely stanzaic form exemplifies his interest in finding musicality within the numbers of the speaking voice. Kinnell would publish several other metrical compositions in Chicago Review, including his