Selected Links

Audio and Video

Documentaries
Rhapsody & Requiem – The Life of Robinson Jeffers: a 27-minute documentary that originally aired on KPIX in San Francisco in 1967.

A Big Read audio documentary on Jeffers, including a biographical summary and readings of a number of poems.

A brief introductory video on Jeffers and Tor house, produced by the Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation.

Performances
Marian Seldes reads “Roan Stallion” in four YouTube videos: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV. Her reading is available as a download or CD from Smithsonian Folkways, as is a CD of poems and excerpts from The Tower Beyond Tragedy.

Jeffers’ celebrated adaptation of Euripides’ Medea is available complete in the 1983 revival starring Zoe Caldwell. There is also a 37-minute recording of Judith Anderson reading excerpts from the play and a ten-minute video sample of the 1959 televised production, also with Anderson in the title role.

Filmmaker Lucas Seastrom and artist Katherine Wheeler created a beautiful homage to Jeffers that weaves in rare audio of Jeffers reading “The Place for No Story,” “The Answer,” and other poems.

An unidentified but talented reader (possibly actor James Carew) performs an 11-minute selection of Jeffers’ poetry, spanning his entire career.

Jeffers Reading Jeffers
During Jeffers’ 1941 reading tour and performance at the Library of Congress, his readings of a few poems were recorded.

To the Stone-Cutters
Night
Natural Music
Hurt Hawks
Wise Men In Their Bad Hours
The Day Is a Poem
The Bloody Sire

Shane O’Neill’s Grave
Suicide’s Stone
Watch the Lights Fade
Now Returned Home
Oh, Lovely Rock
The Low Sky
An excerpt from The Tower Beyond Tragedy

Sample Essays, Lectures, and Articles

Nature and Ideology in Wallace Stevens, by Justin Quinn, Ph.D., Charles University, Czech Republic.

The Hermitary: Robinson Jeffers: Poetry, Nature, and Solitude.

The Voice within the Voice: Hearing Jeffers' Poetry through the Letters,
by Tim Hunt.

Professor Jackson Crawford (Old Norse Studies, UC/Boulder) discusses his admiration for Robinson Jeffers’ poetry on his VLog, “Ranch Porch Series.”

Library Collections and Archives

Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation — The Robinson Jeffers Tor House Foundation, affiliated with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is a nonprofit organization of volunteer members established in 1978 to acquire, maintain and provide for public access to Tor House, Hawk Tower and the surrounding gardens.

Occidental College, The Jeffers Collection at the Mary Norton Clapp Library

University of Texas, Austin — The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center

Yale University — Beinecke Library, Jeffers Finding Aid

Online Resources

Academy of American Poets

PoemHunter

The Big Read — National Endowment for the Arts

Modern American Poetry

PAL: Perspectives in American Literature – A Research and Reference Guide

Poetry Foundation

Teaching Resources

Higher Education Learning Resources — Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962), by Arthur B. Coffin.

An hour-long Big Read seminar on Jeffers from the University of Georgia.

Miscellany of Interest

Seven's Wonders of Monterey CountryMonterey Herald slideshow (Tor House featured at 3:19).

Episodes of Ghost Adventures provide an entertaining look at Tor House.

“A Poet's Home in Carmel”; by Matt Villano, San Francisco Chronicle, July 16, 2006.