Griffes, James Hartness — Collected Poems

James Hartness Griffes wrote his first two poetry books as linked arguments for joy, freedom of mind, and the divinity he believed could be found in human beings rather than in an outside God. Under the name Luke North, he later turned the same convictions outward: against land monopoly, war, capital punishment, poverty, and every institution that placed property above life. He was also a newspaperman, playwright, printer, editor of Everyman, associate of Clarence Darrow, and the most visible voice of California’s Great Adventure land-tax campaigns. This edition resets all 116 quatrains of Rubaiyat of Cheerfulness, all 206 quatrains of Rubaiyat of Life, and the complete poetry text of Songs of the Great Adventure. It restores “Title” and “Personal Privilege,” which an earlier OCR-based edition had accidentally absorbed into neighboring poems.