This art : poems about poetry / edited by Michael Wiegers.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Wiegers, Michael.

Series:

Copper Canyon Press anthology

A Copper Canyon Press anthology

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poetry--Authorship--Poetry.

Poetry.

Poetry--Authorship.

Poetics--Poetry.

Poetics.

American poetry.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

xviii, 165 pages ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

Port Townsend, Wash. : Copper Canyon Press, [2003]

Summary:

In more than one hundred poems, sixty poets from around the world explore the nature and function of poetry, whether directly or obliquely, finding mystery, paradox, and fullness in an art made of common everyday speech. Editor Michael Wiegers writes in his introduction, "Often the loudest arguments on behalf of poetry are made in prose. Meanwhile, the more convincing arguments are sung in poems." Hayden Carruth reminds the reader of Tolstoy's insistence that poetry infect the reader, "so to induce a change, / a change of conscience / that may lead to a change in the world." Every poem requires new eyes and ears, new angles of perception, a fresh encounter with consciousness and conscience. And despite the fact that almost every poet agrees that poetry writing (and reading) demands a state of revolutionary thinking, the poems are surprisingly free of self-consciousness or self-regard. In a poem by Robert Bringhurst, a poet is warned, "Self-love is an ending... / and not a beginning. Love means love / of the thing sung, not of the song or the singing." Jane Miller reminds us, "We are / being made into words even as we speak." This Art advances no new theory of poetry writing, nor does it attempt to define a school of thought on the subject. Rather it serves up a sumptuously passionate and diverse art of the impossible, where poetry is found, time and again, in "awakening to something / just beyond what words can say."

Contents:

Art Class / James Galvin 3

"Once I got a postcard" / Jaan Kaplinski 4

Always on the Train / Ruth Stone 5

On the Subject of Poetry / W.S. Merwin 6

Geo-Bestiary #X / Jim Harrison 7

The Allure of Forms / Coral Bracho 8

365 Poems / Ann Stanford 9

Poetry / Jane Miller 10

Voices (an excerpt) / Antonio Porchia 12

What We Need Words For / Rebecca Seiferle 14

Georgi Borisov in Paris / John Balaban 15

Speech Alone / Jean Follain 16

Ars Poetica / Eleanor Wilner 17

Thoughts on a Night Journey / Tu Fu 19

The Purchase / Clarence Major 20

You Can Start the Poetry Now, Or: News from Crazy Horse / Thomas McGrath 21

The Useful / Jean Follain 23

Love Poem / Erin Belieu 24

These Poems, She Said / Robert Bringhurst 25

Poetics / Cesare Pavese 26

Writing Class / Stephen Berg 28

Why do poets write? / Richard Jones 30

In Hiding / Miklos Radnoti 31

A Woman Writer Does Laundry / Anna Swir 32

"To write more" / Jaan Kaplinski 33

Learning a Dead Language / W.S. Merwin 34

California / Hayden Carruth 36

By the Rivers / Shirley Kaufman 38

After Our War / John Balaban 40

August 22, 1939 / Kenneth Rexroth 41

What Issa Heard / David Budbill 45

Drinking Alone on a Spring Night / An Jung-sop 46

Word Drunk / Jim Harrison 47

Epiphany / Elsa Cross 48

A Physics of Sudden Light / Alberto Rios 49

Writing the Poem / Gary Holthaus 51

Homage to the Word-Hoard / Joseph Stroud 52

The Book of Questions #XXI / Pablo Neruda 54

From My Notebook / Antonio Machado 55

Hacedor / Joseph Stroud 57

Theory and Practice in Poetry / Eleanor Wilner 58

Loading a Boar / David Lee 60

Imperfect Poetry and Meaningless Poetry / Iijima Koichi 61

To No One in Particular / Marvin Bell 62

Ars Poetica: A Stone Soup / Norman Dubie 64

The Impossible Indispensability of the Ars Poetica / Hayden Carruth 66

Who I Write For / Vicente Aleixandre 68

Still Another Day #xxviii / Pablo Neruda 71

Dedicated to You / Reetika Vazirani 72

Sounds of the Resurrected Dead Man's Footsteps (#2) / Marvin Bell 74

Poetic Voice / Rebecca Seiferle 76

I Can't Write a Poem about Class Rage / Erin Belieu 77

Comment on this: in the real scheme of things, poetry is marginal / Richard Jones 79

Ars Poetica / Norman Dubie 80

Somebody Consoles Me with a Poem / Sandor Csoori 82

Some Part of the Lyric / Gregory Orr 84

A Tao of Poetry (an excerpt) / Sam Hamill 85

On Exploration / James Galvin 86

Cucina / Martine Bellen 87

Ars Poetica / Primus St. John 88

Poetry Reading at the Varna Ruins / John Balaban 89

Instructions to Be Left Behind / Marvin Bell 90

Poem without Music / Jose Hierro 92

Parable of the Voices / Robert Bringhurst 94

Recording the Spirit Voices / David Bottoms 95

Poem / Timothy Liu 96

Ars Poetica / Dana Levin 97

Going Back to the Convent / Madeline DeFrees 98

#69 / Han Shan (Cold Mountain) 99

Poets / Kay Boyle 100

Poets / James Laughlin 102

Early Spring East of Town / Yang Chu-yuan 103

I Know How Every Poet / James Laughlin 104

Braided Creek (an excerpt) / Jim Harrison, Ted Kooser 105

An Introduction to My Anthology / Marvin Bell 106

They Say / Stephen Kuusisto 107

For the Seventh Day / Sandor Csoori 108

Poems / Ruth Stone 109

Singing Aloud / Carolyn Kizer 110

Poetry Reading / Anna Swir 111

The Meaning of Life / Patricia Goedicke 112

Waiting / Shirley Kaufman 114

The Story of the End of the Story / James Galvin 117

Poetry is verdant / Jaan Kaplinski 118

Revisionist Poem

Octavio Paz / Thomas McGrath 119

Do Not Speak Keresan to a Mescalero Apache / Arthur Sze 120

Because the Eye Is a Flower Whose Root Is the Hand / Dennis Schmitz 121

Night Seasons / Stephen Kuusisto 122

Our Mother Talks about Metaphor / Susan Griffin 124

The Moon Is a Diamond / Arthur Sze 125

Ars Poetica / Dana Levin 126

And It Came to Pass / C.D. Wright 127

The Ambassador / Pablo Neruda 129

What Keeps / C.D. Wright 130

The Word Between the World and God / Emily Warn 131

Erasing Stars / Stephen Kuusisto 132

Morning Star / C.D. Wright 133

Daily ritual / Shirley Kaufman 134

At Seventy-five: Rereading an Old Book / Hayden Carruth 136

Stories Are Made of Mistakes / James Galvin 137

Daddy Out Hitch-Hiking At 3:00 a.m. / John Balaban 140

On This Side of the River / Stephen Berg 141

The Magician-Made Tree (an excerpt) / Cyrus Cassells 143

Photovoltaic / Olga Broumas 144

Homage to Life: Jules Supervielle / Joseph Stroud 146

The Snow and the Plum

I / Lu Mei-p'o 148

II / Lu Mei p'o 148

Country Scene / Ho Xuan Huong 149

The Last Poem in the World / Hayden Carruth 150.

ISBN:

1556591845

OCLC:

51511167