Beautiful & Pointless

Beautiful & Pointless PDF Author: David Orr
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062079417
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 170

Book Description
"David Orr is no starry-eyed cheerleader for contemporary poetry; Orr’s a critic, and a good one. . . . Beautiful & Pointless is a clear-eyed, opinionated, and idiosyncratic guide to a vibrant but endangered art form, essential reading for anyone who loves poetry, and also for those of us who mostly just admire it from afar." —Tom Perrotta Award-winning New York Times Book Review poetry columnist David Orr delivers an engaging, amusing, and stimulating tour through the world of poetry. With echoes of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, Orr’s Beautiful & Pointless offers a smart and funny approach to appreciating an art form that many find difficult to embrace.

Close Calls with Nonsense

Close Calls with Nonsense PDF Author: Stephen Burt
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
Essays and critical writings on contemporary poetry by Stephen Burt, "the finest critic of his generation" (Lucie Brock-Broido) Stephen Burt's Close Calls with Nonsense provokes readers into the elliptical worlds of Rae Armantrout, Paul Muldoon, C. D. Wright, and other contemporary poets whose complexities make them challenging, original, and, finally, readable. Burt's intelligence and enthusiasm introduce both tentative and longtime poetry readers to the rewards of reading new poetry. As Burt writes in the title essay: "The poets I know don't want to be famous people half so much as they want their best poems read; I want to help you find and read them. I write here for people who want to read more new poetry but somehow never get around to it; for people who enjoy Seamus Heaney or Elizabeth Bishop and want to know what next; for people who enjoy John Ashbery or Anne Carson but aren't sure why; and, especially, for people who read the half-column poems in glossy magazines and ask, ‘Is that all there is?'"

Readings in Contemporary Poetry

Readings in Contemporary Poetry PDF Author: Vincent Katz
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030023001X
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
-Culled from Dia Art Foundation's -Readings in Contemporary Poetry- series, this anthology includes ninety-four poets who have participated in the reading series from 2010 to 2016. Edited by poet and author Vincent Katz, the book stresses the experimental aspects of contemporary poetic practice, highlighting commonalities among poets and placing their diverse voices in conversation with one another---

The Sweetest Kind of Poison

The Sweetest Kind of Poison PDF Author: Katie Wismer
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781720864523
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Book Description
The Sweetest Kind of Poison is a collection of poetry about toxic relationships and letting go of what no longer serves you. It takes you through the fall, the collapse, the withdrawal, the recovery, and the now, chronicling a journey of abuse, heartache, confidence, self-love, letting go, and growing up. Because sometimes only our darkest experiences can bring out our raw strength and help us find the people we are meant to be.

Strong Words

Strong Words PDF Author: W. N. Herbert
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
As well as representing many of the most important poets of the last 100 years, Strong Words charts many different stances and movements, from modernism to postmodernism, from futurism to the future theories of poetry.

The Harvard Book of Contemporary American Poetry

The Harvard Book of Contemporary American Poetry PDF Author: Helen Vendler
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Book Description
Join Professor Helen Vendler in her course lecture on the Yeats poem "Among School Children". View her insightful and passionate analysis along with a condensed reading and student comments on the course. The poetry collected in this volume reveals the range and power of the contemporary American imagination. The verve, freedom, and boldness of American English are combined with the new harmonies of modern cadence. Here are distillations of twentieth-century perception, feeling, and thought, and reflections of changing social realities, scientific and psychoanalytic insights, and the strong voices of feminism and black consciousness. This is a book for those who value fresh and original poetry and for readers worldwide who are curious about contemporary American experience. Helen Vendler relies on her own taste and judgment in singling out excellent poems, beginning with the late modernist flowering of Wallace Stevens and continuing to the present. Her wide-ranging Introduction places recent American poetry in its aesthetic and social contexts. The anthology provides an extensive offering of the work of major poets and introduces many writers who are only now beginning to make their reputation. Thirty-five poets are included, with a representative selection from the earlier to later work of each and a significant number of long poems. Brief biographies of the poets are appended.

Modern Poetry in China

Modern Poetry in China PDF Author: Paul Manfredi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781604978629
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Book Description
This book is in the Cambria Sinophone World Series (general editor: Victor H. Mair). *Includes rare color images. Chinese poetry, along with many other art forms in China, underwent a highly self-conscious transformation in the first decades of the twentieth century. Poetry, perhaps more than any other art form, did so under the heavy burden of a voluminous literary precedent, a precedent which was in its very format of patterned words inscribed on scrolls--a mark of the Chinese literati tradition. Turning away from this tradition seemed necessary in the context of a political, social, and cultural reform movement (which was designed to strengthen China in the face of increasing international pressure as well as domestic breakdown). At the same time, reforming a poetic tradition which had served as a principal touchstone of aesthetic accomplishment--from its role in Confucian canon as object of contemplation for correct action, to its function as a test of candidate's qualifications to govern through the civil service examination, to its function as national past-time in all manner of social gathering--was a major challenge. The result of such a predicament for poets throughout the twentieth century has been the compulsion to discover a poetic style which resonates with the modern world and yet is rooted in Chinese cultural experience. One way in which poets have been able to accomplish this is by relying on poetry's visuality, be it in the graphic properties of the writing system itself, the visual context of the presentation of the poetic texts, or the acute image details in the poems. The history of approximately one century of modern Chinese poetry production has been addressed broadly in scholarship, but such broad strokes tend to miss important dynamics which fall outside of general narratives. The importance of Chinese visual tradition to modern Chinese poets is a good case in point. Accordingly, this book addresses specific manifestations of the nexus connecting modernity and visuality in Chinese poetry. It begins with a discussion of May Fourth poetics as exemplified in the groundbreaking work of Li Jinfa, China's first "Symbolist" poet. From there the book traces notable developments of visuality in the new form or free verse writing (called Xinshi or "New Poetry") through mid-century modernist experiments in Taiwan (focusing on Ji Xian). From there the book then explores the avant-garde poetry of Luo Qing and Xia Yu before returning to mainland Chinese developments of Misty poets Yan Li and his contemporaries. The work concludes with a wide variety of poet-artists writing and exhibiting in the twenty-first century. Looking across this period of modern Chinese poetry's development, one is able to observe how important the visual-verbal dynamic has been to the innovation of poetic style and method. From the twenty-first century on, such multi-media expressions will likely continue to grow; this is a function of a Chinese aesthetic tradition pairing word and image and will continue to manifest in new and more inventive ways. This is an important book for Asian literary and art history studies and history collections

Reading Modern Poetry

Reading Modern Poetry PDF Author: Michael Schmidt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780415015691
Category : Books and reading
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Book Description
This book should be of interest to introductory students of literature.

Reading Modern Poetry

Reading Modern Poetry PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 437

Book Description


A Grain of Poetry

A Grain of Poetry PDF Author: Herbert R. Kohl
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060930713
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 181

Book Description
Poetry has the power to move and challenge the reader. It can intensify or even celebrate misery, be cynical or wry, or just laugh outright in an outrageous way. Poetry is as serious and antic as life, and yet reading modern poetry can be shocking to our sense of what language is or must be. In A Grain of Poetry, Herbert Kohl presents a series of guideposts to help everyone read poetry and discover those poems that inform and inspire them. In clear, direct language, he covers all of the essential-but often unchartedpaths to understanding poetry: form and structure, line breaks and pauses, rhythm and melody, imagery, and recitation. Written by one of the country's leading educators, A Grain of Poetry is a comprehensive and accessible guide for all poets, students, and poetry lovers.