Author Guide · American Poetry · Translation
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In 1968 Robert Bly won the National Book Award for The Light Around the Body, a collection of poems against the Vietnam War, and gave the $1,000 prize to the draft resistance movement. Twenty-two years later the same Minnesota poet had a prose bestseller, Iron John: A Book About Men, which spent ten weeks at number one on the New York Times list and gave its name to a men’s movement. In between, and long after, he translated: Neruda and Vallejo, Swedish poets, Rilke, Machado, and the ecstatic poets Kabir, Rumi and Mirabai. This guide covers his 13 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1962–2013 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Robert Bly (1926–2021) wrote, translated or edited more than thirty books. The key titles are Silence in the Snowy Fields (1962), The Light Around the Body (1967, National Book Award), The Kabir Book (1977), Iron John (1990) and My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy (2005). Start with Stealing Sugar from the Castle (2013), his selected poems. Read on for which book suits which reader, and how the poet, the translator and the men’s-movement author fit together.
Where to Start with Robert Bly
If you want the whole poet in one volume
→ Stealing Sugar from the Castle (2013) — selected and new poems, 1950–2013.
If you want the book that made him famous
→ Iron John (1990) — the 1990 bestseller about men.
If you want his ecstatic translations
→ The Kabir Book (1977) — Kabir in free American verse.
If you want the quiet early poems
→ Silence in the Snowy Fields (1962) — his acclaimed debut.
13 Robert Bly Books in Order
Silence in the Snowy Fields
Bly’s first widely acclaimed collection, published by Wesleyan University Press in 1962. Short, quiet poems set in the farm country of western Minnesota, where he grew up in a community of Norwegian immigrant farmers. Its plain images of fields, barns, snow and lakes made it a key book of what critics came to call the Deep Image school.
The Light Around the Body
His second collection, written while he was co-founding American Writers Against the Vietnam War in 1966. Many of its poems protest the war and American public life. It won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1968, and Bly gave the $1,000 prize money to the draft resistance movement.
Sleepers Joining Hands
Bly’s third collection, published in 1973, during the last years of the Vietnam War. It includes the long anti-war poem “The Teeth Mother Naked at Last” and shows his growing interest in myth and psychology, the material of his later prose.
The Kabir Book
Forty-four poems by the 15th-century Indian poet Kabir, published by Beacon Press in 1977. Bly did not work from the Hindi: by his own description he rephrased Rabindranath Tagore’s English translations in contemporary American language. They became some of the most widely quoted Kabir poems in English.
News of the Universe
An anthology edited by Bly and published in 1980, built around the idea in its subtitle: poems in which the human mind and the natural world are not set apart. It is the clearest statement of the outlook that also drew him to the mystic poets he translated.
The Man in the Black Coat Turns
A 1981 collection that includes several prose poems, a form Bly kept returning to. It appeared between This Tree Will Be Here for a Thousand Years (1979) and Loving a Woman in Two Worlds (1985), as his poems moved from public protest toward the inner life.
Iron John
Bly’s prose bestseller, a reading of the Grimm fairy tale of Iron John (“Iron Hans”) as a map of how boys become men, drawing on myth, poetry and psychology. It topped the New York Times bestseller list for ten weeks and stayed on the list for more than a year. It grew out of seminars for men he led with James Hillman and Michael Meade, and it gave its name to the mythopoetic men’s movement and to fierce criticism of it.
The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart
An anthology published by HarperCollins in 1992, two years after Iron John, edited with James Hillman and Michael Meade, his partners in the men’s seminars. It gathers poems from many periods and cultures for the readers of the men’s movement.
The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy
A 1995 anthology of sacred and devotional poems from many traditions, edited by Bly. It places ecstatic poets such as Kabir, Rumi and Mirabai, whom he also translated, among poets from many other cultures.
The Sibling Society
Published in May 1996, Bly’s second book of cultural criticism argues that adults in modern America have stopped growing up, leaving a society of half-adults, “siblings” with no one taking the role of elder. Like Iron John, it leans on fairy tales and myth to make its case.
Mirabai
Versions of the 16th-century Indian poet-saint Mirabai, made with the poet Jane Hirshfield and published in 2004. Mirabai’s songs of devotion to Krishna sit in the same bhakti tradition as Kabir, the tradition Bly had begun translating in the 1970s.
My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy
A 2005 collection of ghazals, the old Persian and Indian form Bly knew from translating poets such as Hafez. He wrote it in English as a series of loosely linked stanzas, the form he had already used in The Night Abraham Called to the Stars (2001).
Stealing Sugar from the Castle
Selected and new poems covering more than sixty years, from the early Minnesota poems to the late ghazals. Published in 2013, it was followed by his Collected Poems in 2018.
In What Order to Read Robert Bly
Bly’s books stand alone, so there is no series to follow. For the poems, a selected volume such as Stealing Sugar from the Castle shows how far he travelled, from the still, snowbound poems of Silence in the Snowy Fields to the anti-war anger of The Light Around the Body and the late ghazals.
Read Iron John as a separate strand: prose built on fairy tales, which explains the men’s movement and the arguments about it. For the translator, start with The Kabir Book or Mirabai, then the anthologies News of the Universe and The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy, which show the poets he chose to bring into English.
A reading path
1. Stealing Sugar from the Castle (2013)
2. Silence in the Snowy Fields (1962)
3. The Kabir Book (1977)
4. Iron John (1990)
5. My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy (2005)
More Books by Robert Bly
Beyond the 13 key books: 20 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Poetry collections
10
10 books · 1977–2018
- 1977This Body Is Made of Camphor and Gopherwoodprose poems
- 1979This Tree Will Be Here for a Thousand Yearspoems
- 1985Loving a Woman in Two Worldslove poems
- 1986Selected Poemshis first selected volume
- 1997Morning Poemspoems
- 1999Eating the Honey of Wordspoems
- 2001The Night Abraham Called to the Starsghazals
- 2009Reaching Out to the Worldnew and selected prose poems
- 2011Talking into the Ear of a Donkeylate poems
- 2018Collected Poemsthe complete poems
Prose
3
3 books · 1980–1998
- 1980Talking All Morningcollected conversations and interviews
- 1994The Spirit Boy and the Insatiable Soulessays
- 1998The Maiden Kingon the masculine and feminine, with Marion Woodman
Translations and anthologies
7
7 books · 1966–2004
- 1966A Poetry Reading Against the Vietnam Waranti-war anthology
- 1971Neruda and Vallejo: Selected Poemswith John Knoepfle and James Wright
- 1975Friends, You Drank Some Darknessthree Swedish poets
- 1975Leaping Poetryan idea with poems and translations
- 1983Times Aloneselected poems of Antonio Machado
- 1997Lorca and Jiménezselected poems
- 2004The Winged Energy of Delightselected translations
The years · 1926–2021
Quick facts about Robert Bly
- Known for
- Robert Bly is known for plain, image-led poems of rural Minnesota, for bringing Latin American, European and Indian poets into American English, and for Iron John, the book behind the 1990s men’s movement.
- 1926
- Born in Madison, Minnesota
- 1962
- Silence in the Snowy Fields
- 1968
- National Book Award
- 1990
- Iron John
- 2008
- Minnesota’s first poet laureate
- 2021
- Dies in Minneapolis, aged 94
- Born
- 23 December 1926, Madison, Minnesota
- Died
- 21 November 2021, at home in Minneapolis, aged 94
- Education
- Harvard University; MA, University of Iowa (1956)
- Magazine
- Founded The Fifties (later The Sixties), a forum for poetry in translation
- Awards
- National Book Award (1968); Robert Frost Medal; Guggenheim, Rockefeller and NEA fellowships
- Family
- Married the writer Carol Bly (divorced 1979), then Ruth Bly from 1980; four children
The red mark is 1990: Iron John, the bestseller that made Bly a public figure far beyond poetry.
How Robert Bly Wrote: Images, Myths and Ecstatic Voices
Bly’s early poems are short and built from things seen: a barn, a field of snow, a lake at night. Critics grouped him with the Deep Image poets, who let a single strong image carry a private, inward meaning instead of an argument. As he put it, “The fundamental world of poetry is an inward world.”
Translation shaped that style. Through his magazine The Fifties, renamed The Sixties, he brought Neruda, Vallejo, Swedish poets and Spanish poets into American English, and later Rilke, Machado, Kabir, Rumi, Hafez and Mirabai. With the Indian and Persian poets he made free “versions” rather than close translations: his Kabir rephrases Tagore’s English, not the Hindi. In his late books he took over their forms, above all the ghazal.
Where the poems are spare, the prose is storytelling. Iron John and The Sibling Society read fairy tales line by line as accounts of growing up, mixing myth, Jungian psychology, poems and anecdotes from his men’s gatherings. His interest in what anthologies call “twofold consciousness”, a mind not set apart from the world, links his own poems to the mystics he translated.
Watch
Robert Bly on Iron John at the John Adams Institute
Robert Bly talks about Iron John, myth and the men’s movement with moderator Tom van der Kroon at the John Adams Institute in Amsterdam on 16 April 1994. From the official John Adams Institute channel.
Frequently asked questions about Robert Bly’s books
How many books has Robert Bly written?
More than thirty books of poetry, prose, translation and anthology. This page lists 13 key books, plus 20 more under “More Books by Robert Bly”.
What are Robert Bly’s books in order?
The key books are Silence in the Snowy Fields (1962), The Light Around the Body (1967), Sleepers Joining Hands (1973), The Kabir Book (1977), News of the Universe (1980), The Man in the Black Coat Turns (1981), Iron John (1990), The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart (1992), The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy (1995), The Sibling Society (1996), Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems (2004), My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy (2005) and Stealing Sugar from the Castle (2013).
Where should I start with Robert Bly?
With Stealing Sugar from the Castle (2013), his selected and new poems from 1950 to 2013. If you came for the men’s movement, start with Iron John; if you came for the mystic poets, with The Kabir Book.
What is Robert Bly’s most famous book?
Iron John: A Book About Men (1990), which spent ten weeks at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Among poets he is equally known for Silence in the Snowy Fields (1962) and the National Book Award winner The Light Around the Body (1967).
Why was Iron John and the men’s movement criticised?
After Iron John, Bly led gatherings for men with James Hillman and Michael Meade, often called the mythopoetic men’s movement. Some critics called the book anti-feminist; others said it argued for a return to traditional gender roles, or was a New Age mix of traditions, while supporters valued its contribution to discussions of men’s lives. The movement was also ridiculed in the press for images of men drumming in the woods. Bly answered that the media had reduced the work “to something ridiculous” and told The Paris Review in 2000 that the seminars “were not threatening to the women’s movement at all”.
Did Robert Bly translate Kabir and Rumi from the original?
Not directly. His Kabir versions rephrase Rabindranath Tagore’s English translations in contemporary language rather than translating the Hindi,, and his books of Kabir and Mirabai are usually described as versions rather than translations. His Mirabai was made with the poet Jane Hirshfield.
What has Robert Bly to do with non-duality?
Indirectly, through the poets he chose. He translated the Indian and Persian mystics Kabir, Mirabai, Rumi and Hafez, and his anthology News of the Universe is subtitled Poems of Twofold Consciousness: poems in which the mind and the natural world are not split apart. He wrote as a poet, not as a teacher of any tradition.
Did Robert Bly win the National Book Award?
Yes, in 1968, for The Light Around the Body, a collection that includes poems against the Vietnam War. He gave the $1,000 prize money to the draft resistance movement. In 2008 he became Minnesota’s first poet laureate.
Is Robert Bly still alive?
No. Robert Bly died on 21 November 2021 at his home in Minneapolis, aged 94. He had lived with dementia for 14 years. His Collected Poems appeared in 2018.
Footnotes
- Robert Bly — Poetry Foundation
- Robert Bly — Academy of American Poets (poets.org)
- Prominent Poet Robert Bly, Author of ‘Iron John’, Dies at 94 — Associated Press via NBC Chicago
- Robert Bly is named Minnesota’s first poet laureate — MPR News
- The Sibling Society — Kirkus Reviews
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“The fundamental world of poetry is an inward world.”
— Robert Bly, as quoted by the Poetry Foundation
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