Argument For Love

James Humphrey, Kendall Press, Falmouth, MA, 1970; 60 pages

Humphrey's first collection of poems.

“I think Humphrey's stuff is getting it, getting the idea, getting to the idea—that living is the first poem, and getting that understood in simple true words is the second.” –William Saroyan

“What I like about James Humphrey’s poems is their unflinching honesty. They are “arguments” for preserving in life that which makes us most human. A disarming simplicity of dictation, plain and hard meaning without descriptive qualification, reverberates in the highly charged condensation of these poems. His is the language in which men dream of what their lives ought to be. Again and again, I come back to these poems. They reassure me that a direct and true language is still possible in this tortured and confused world. I flatter myself to call him my contemporary. –Darrell Gray

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