Best words, best order : essays on poetry / Stephen Dobyns.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dobyns, Stephen, 1941-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poetry.

Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.).

Poetics.

Criticism.

Physical Description:

xiv, 398 pages ; 21 cm

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

Summary:

Stephen Dobyns, a poet and teacher, has the rare ability to speak to readers about his art. In this new edition of Best Words, Best Order, Dobyns further explains the mystery of the poet's work. Through essays on memory and metaphor; pacing; the intricacies of voice and tone; and thoughtful appreciations of Chekhov, Ritsos, Mandelstam, and Rilke, Dobyns guides readers and writers through poetry's mysterious twilight communiques. For this new second edition, Dobyns has added two new essays, one dealing with the idea of beauty in poetry and another on the almost mystical way poets connect seemingly disparate things in a single poem. Anyone interested in the beauty and intricacy of writing and poetry will find great pleasure in this new edition of an enduring classic.

Contents:

Deceptions

Metaphor and the authenticating act of memory

Writing the reader's life

Notes on free verse

Pacing : the ways a poem moves

Function of tone

Voices one listens to

Traffic between two worlds

Rilke's growth as a poet

Mandelstam : the poem as event

Chekhov's sense of writing as seen through his letters

Ritsos and the metaphysical moment

Cemetery night

Maker's manipulation of time

Passerby in the birdless street

Problem of beauty and the requirements of art.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [369]-386) and index.

First edition published by St. Martin's Press, 1996.

ISBN:

1403961476

OCLC:

52068200