Brett Ruutherford - Autumn Symphony

BRETT RUTHERFORD - AUTUMN SYMPHONY

Three Poem Cycles by Brett Rutherford.

This new, expanded ebook is Brett Rutherford’s 67-poem epic cycle of autumn poems. The spirits of Whitman, Shelley, Poe, Pushkin, Hugo, and Bradbury walk alongside the author in this celebration of “autumn’s being,” a linked word symphony in three parts, mythic, metaphysical, political, satirical and, of course, supernatural. This volume expands upon and replaces the previous print volumes, published under the title Anniversarius in four different editions.

Autumn becomes the landscape for Jan Palach’s suicide in Soviet-invaded Czechoslovakia in 1969; for translations of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Hugo; and for rhapsodic and moody invocations of fall in Western Pennsylvania (the poet’s birthplace) and haunted New England. Greek myth comes in by way of a hymn to Rhea, the Oak Tree Goddess, an encounter with three oak nymphs, and a dinner party in Hades. In Ming Dynasty China, an old poet-scholar confronts Bai Hu, the White Tiger of Autumn, while in other poems the doomed Tang Emperor Li Yu sings out the saddest poems ever to come from China.

Rutherford walks in the footsteps of Poe in New York City, and sets two other powerful poems in Manhattan: one a panorama of historic Madison Square Park, the other a troubled visit in the aftermath of 9/11.

The most important work of this neo-Romantic poet, Autumn Symphony presents a cosmos tinged with autumnal sadness, yet the work is brave with the delight in a life fully relished down to the last falling leaf. Although solitude and loss stalk through these pages, there are also poems expressing a defiant, transcendent spirit. The locales of the latest poems include New York, Providence, rural Pennsylvania, the planets Mars and Pluto, ancient Greece, and ancient China. Relish this book slowly. Read it aloud and savor its music as well as its meaning.

This is the 313th publication of The Poet’s Press. Published April 2023. PDF ebook, 244 pages, 6 x 9 inches. Read online or download from The Internet Archive using the link below.

Autumn Symphony : Brett Rutherford : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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Version 1.1 Updated January 13, 2026.