The Little Death of Self : Nine Essays toward Poetry / Marianne Boruch.

Format:

• Book

Author/Creator:

• Boruch, Marianne, 1950-

Contributor:

• Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Series:

• Poets on poetry

Standardized Title:

• Essays. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

• Poetry--History and criticism.
• Poetry.
• American essays--21st century.
• American essays.

Genre:

• Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor [Michigan] : University of Michigan Press, [2017]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

A volume in the Poets on Poetry series, which collects critical works by contemporary poets, gathering together the articles, interviews, and book reviews by which they have articulated the poetics of a new generation. The line between poetry (the delicate, surprising not-quite) and the essay (the emphatic so-there!) is thin, easily crossed. Both welcome a deep mulling-over, endlessly mixing image and idea and running with scissors; certainly each distrusts the notion of premise or formulaic progression. Marianne Boruch's essays in The Little Death of Self emerged by way of odd details or bothersome questions that would not quit--Why does the self grow smaller as the poem grows enormous? Why does closure in a poem so often mean keep going? Must we stalk the poem or does the poem stalk us until the world clicks open? Boruch's intrepid curiosity led her to explore fields of expertise about which she knew little: aviation, music, anatomy, history, medicine, photography, fiction, neuroscience, physics, anthropology, painting, and drawing. There's an addiction to metaphor here, an affection for image, sudden turns of thinking, and the great subjects of poetry: love, death, time, knowledge. There's amazement at the dumb luck of staying long enough in an inkling to make it a poem at all. Poets such as Keats, Stevens, Frost, Plath, Auden, and Bishop, along with painters, inventors, doctors, scientists, composers, musicians, neighbors, friends, and family--all traffic blatantly or under the surface--and one gets a glimpse of such fellow travelers now and then.

Contents:

• To warn and to acknowledge
• The end inside it
• Seeing things
• Is and was
• Heavy lifting
• O'Connor plus Bishop plus closely plus distance
• Charm
• Diagnosis, poetry, and the burden of mystery
• Three Blakes
• The little death of self.

Notes:

• Issued as part of book collections on Project MUSE.
• Includes bibliographical references (pages 169-174) and index.
• Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

• 9780472122776
• 0472122770
• 9780472073474
• 0472073478

Publisher Number:

10.3998/mpub.9478071

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.