''Commander Lowell'' is a poem by American poet

Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects i ...

in his 1959 collection '' Life Studies''. It is a portrait of Lowell's father as a complex character. The poem mentions that the

Commander Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain. ...

gave away naval life to take up a better paid position with soap manufacturers Lever Brothers;. He was inept in civilian life, a poor golf player and a failure in business: "in three years he squandered sixty thousand dollars". The last lines of the poem - ''And once/nineteen, the youngest ensign in his class,/he was "the old man" of a gunboat on the Yangtze'' - were described by

Stephen Yenser Stephen Yenser (born 1941, Wichita, Kansas, United States) is an American poet and literary critic who has published three acclaimed volumes of verse, as well as books on James Merrill, Robert Lowell, and an assortment of contemporary poets. With ...

as banishing "the humor of condescension that is accorded a Quixote."

References

{{Robert Lowell American poems Works by Robert Lowell