Poetry by Whittaker Chambers

In his memoir, Whittaker Chambers wrote, “When I returned from Europe in 1923, I began to arrange my life so that I could devote most of my time to writing verse.” (Witness, p. 165)

Chambers published poetry in The Nation during the 1920s, one piece in Poetry magazine (edited by friend Louis Zukofsky), and in Witness. His wife Esther Shemtiz Chambers and friend Duncan Norton Taylor published more selections in his posthumous book, Cold Friday (1964).

• The Nation
• Quag-Hole
• Fruit of the Pear
• As I go hunt my job
• Lothrop, Montana
• Poetry: October 21st 1926
• The New Masses: Bare and lonely lives
• Witness:
  • Blow, whistles, blow
  • My brother lies in the cold earth
• Cold Friday [forthcoming]