Best known for his poems about the Central Coast of California, Robinson Jeffers poetic career spanned over six decades, from the 1890's until his death in 1965. The peak of his career, however, was from 1920s through the 1930s. Among his most famous poems include "Cawdor," which is a narrative poem based on the tragedy of Hippolytus and "Birds and Fishes," which was published posthumously and tells the story of a yearly feeding frenzy in October by seabirds. Jeffers also wrote a number of poems on environmentalism (he was an ardent environmentalist) and on WWII (his most famous was titled "9, 19, 39," which got him into trouble across the country).
Jeffers' poems are undeniably well-written and interesting. However, not everyone liked him, as his career had a fair amount of controversy. Jeffers believed in a philosophy called inhumanism, which inherently meant that he opposed war. Because the United States was engulfed in WWII, this was an exceptionally controversial stance. Still, Jeffers was exceptionally influential in the careers of many authors and poets alike. He wrote many very good poems and is still well-regarded to this day.
