My Business is Circumference: Poets on Influence and Mastery

Portada
Stephen Berg
Paul Dry Books, 2001 - 294 pàgines

"Anyone interested in how language calls to language, and heart to heart, will find these pages irresistible." —The Philadelphia Inquirer

"In this quirky, resonant, and necessary book, generously edited by Stephen Berg, a wide range of American poets at all stages of their writing lives offer their poems and choose their precursors, meditating with great humility and insight on the dual mysteries of influence and mastery, on the reading that fosters writing, on the shimmering nobility of poetry itself." —Edward Hirsch, Author of How to Read a Poem

Twenty-eight distinguished contemporary American poets provide a multifaceted view of the creative process. Each poet has contributed a poem and chosen several poems by other poets that have influenced it. In an essay, each poet then describes how those influences have led to a sense of poetic mastery.

The Contributors:

A.R. AmmonsL.S. AsekoffStephanie BrownHayden CarruthGillian ConoleyAmy GerstlerJudith HallHunt HawkinsJane HirshfieldClaudia KeelanYusef KomunyakaaLisa LewisDana LevinLaurence LiebermanThomas LuxJane MeadJack MyersDonald RevellLen RobertsMichael RyanIra SadoffHugh SeidmanJennifer Snyder Gerald SternLucien StrykKaren VolkmanTed WeissJoe Wenderoth

"[A]n intimate and diverse look at the interactive processes of reading and writing: at its best, a compelling revelation of the ways in which the lifeblood of the poetic tradition seeps into the veins of the maker and is remade by this process in as much as it molds it."—Rain Taxi

"My Business is Circumference will intrigue apprentice poets, teachers, and readers fascinated by writers creatively exploring their own material and philosophical foundations."—Foreword Magazine

"The collection's abundance should last you several seasons at the very least."—The Jewish Exponent

"The younger poets male and female steal the show here; while many skirt the topic of mastery with respect to their own work, they are passionate about their influences, which range from Sei Shonagon to Walt Whitman to Sharon Olds."—Library Journal

"The poems selected are a delight. Placed with the work of the moderns they are sometimes a surprise. The juxtaposition invites the reader to puzzle out what the connection is between the two. It is a veritable Rorschach text touching on subtle and sometimes mysterious associations. The poets are generous in their description of their creative processes and revisit their first contact with the poems that inspired them, go on to share with us what touched them, what techniques influenced them and what they struggled with…With the encouragement of the editor, the poets in this book have generously offered to us their insight and art. For this they deserve a place of honor on our book shelves."—Small Press Review

 

Continguts

A R AM M O N
3
STEPHANIE BROWN
17
West Cain
21
HAYDEN CARRUTH
31
What To Do
39
My Masters
47
A Servant of My Work
55
EZRA POUND The Lake Isle
61
IAN E MEAD
152
Ac K M Y E R
164
The Optimist The Pessimist and The Other
170
Proper Rites
177
john Keats Randall jarrell Walt Whitman
186
Reminder
198
You Ever Get a Phone Call
208
H U G H S E l D M A
217

Notes in Medias Res
63
Influence and Mastery
69
IANE HIRSHFIELD
75
Minotaur
81
Without Sovereignty
87
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA
93
The Lure
99
A N A L E V l
103
Media
112
LAURENCE LIEBERMAN
125
T H O M AS L U X
144
The Metric is 1
223
Second Looking and a Theory of Flamingos
230
Sorrow by Absence
240
U C l E N ST RY
244
KAREN VOLKMAN
250
THEODORE WEISS
259
The Present by Theodore and Renée Weiss
270
Withstanding Seizure 2 74
279
Notes
287
Copyright

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Sobre l'autor (2001)

Stephen Berg, founding editor of American Poetry Review, is the author of two dozen books of poetry and translations. He is a professor of English at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

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