The Dolphin: Two Versions, 1972-1973 is an expanded edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning provocative poetry collection that crossed the line between art and life.

I have sat and listened to too many
words of the collaborating muse,
and plotted perhaps too freely with my life,
not avoiding injury to others,
not avoiding injury to myself-
to ask compassion . . . this book, half fiction,
an eelnet made by man for the eel fighting
my eyes have seen what my hand did.
Winner of the 1973 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, Robert Lowell's The Dolphin was controversial from the beginning: many of the poems include letters from Robert Lowell's wife, the celebrated writer and critic Elizabeth Hardwick, wrote to him after he left her for the English socialite and writer Caroline Blackwood. He was warned by many, among them Elizabeth Bishop, that "art just isn't worth that much."
Nevertheless, these poems are a powerful document of an impulsive love, and a moving record of Lowell's change from one life and marriage in America to a new life on new terms with a new family in England, rendered with the stunning technical power and control for which he was so celebrated.
This new edition, which follows the 1973 edition, includes scans of the pages of Lowell's original manuscript, giving us a look into the brilliant and complicated mind of one of our most beloved and distinguished poets.

Robert Lowell; Edited by Saskia Hamilton

Introduction
THE DOLPHIN (1973)
Fishnet
Redcliffe Square
1. Living in London
2. Window
3. America from Oxford, May 1970
4. Oxford
5. The Serpent
6. Symptoms
7. Diagnosis: To Caroline in Scotland
Hospital
1. Shoes
2. Juvenilia
3. Rival
4. Stairwell
5. Walter Raleigh
6. Double-Vision
Hospital II
1. Voices
2. Letter
3. Old Snapshot from Venice 1952
Caroline
1. Flashback to Washington Square 1966
2. Fragility
3. July-August
4. Marriage?
5. Morning Blue
Summer Between Terms 1-2
Fall Weekend at Milgate 1-3
Records
In Harriet's Yearbook
Communication
Dream
Mermaid 1-5
The Mermaid Children
They
The Friend
In the Mail
Doubt
1. Draw
2. Pointing the Horns of the Dilemma
3. Critic
Winter and London
1. Closed Sky
2. At Offado's
3. Flounder
4. Mastodon
5. Freud
6. Harriet's Donkey
During a Transatlantic Call
Exorcism 1-2
Plotted
The Couple
Before Woman
1. Before the Dawn of Woman
2. Day
Artist's Model 1-4
Mermaid Emerging
Marriage
1. Angling
2. Tired Iron
3. Gruff
4. Leaf-Lace Dress
5. Knowing
6. Gold Lull
7. Green Sore
8. Letter
9. Heavy Breathing
10. Late Summer at Milgate
11. Ninth Month
12. Question
13. Robert Sheridan Lowell
14. Overhanging Cloud
15. Careless Night
16. Morning Away from You
Another Summer
1. Wildrose
2. Dolphins
3. Ivana
4. Alimony
5. The New
Leaving America for England
1. America
2. Lost Fish
3. Truth
4. No Telling
5. Sick
6. Facing Oneself
Foxfur
On the End of the Phone
Cars, Walking, etc., an Unmailed Letter
Flight to New York
1. Plane-Ticket
2. With Caroline at the Air-Terminal
3. Purgatory
4. Flight
5. New York Again
6. No Messiah
7. Death and the Maiden
8. New York
9. Sleepless
10. New York
11. Christmas
12. Christmas
Dolphin
THE DOLPHIN MANUSCRIPT (1972)