From the valley of making : essays on the craft of poetry / David Wojahn.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wojahn, David, 1953- author.

Series:

Poets on poetry

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Poetry--Authorship.

Poetics.

Physical Description:

xvii, 212 pages ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2015]

Summary:

David Wojahn examines the state of American verse in the first decades of a new millennium, focusing on both the challenges and opportunities of an ancient art as it tries to adapt to cultural, technological, and political transformations. His personable essays make an impassioned and nuanced argument against the so-called marginalization of poetry in contemporary American culture. This collection includes a penetrating piece on the role of politics in contemporary verse, a querulous examination of what Wojahn terms "the Google poem," and a meditation on poetry and "self-doubt." He considers American poets such as Hayden Carruth, John Berryman, Linda Bierds, and Tom Sleigh, as well as crucial modern international poets, such as Nazim Hikmet, Zbigniew Herbert, C.P. Cavafy, and Tomas Tranströmer. Book jacket.

Contents:

From the Valley of Making 1

Maggie's Farm No More: The Fate of Political Poetry 22

"Of Course I Would Have Saved Them If I Could": On Capaciousness 49

"Tell Me if It Is Too Far for You": On Sympathy 71

"In All Them Time Henry Could Not Make Good": Reintroducing John Berryman 95

"To the Betrayed World': Darth Howard, Ashurbanipal, and a Defense of Poetry 120

"And Not Releasing the Genie": The Poetry of Stuff vs. the Poetry of Knowledge 146

The Coast Is Never Clear: On the Poetry of Happiness 168

"If You Have to Be Sure Don't Write": Poetry and Self-Doubt 191.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780472072507

0472072501

9780472052509

0472052500

OCLC:

892728223