Distributed for Oberlin College Press
A FIELD Guide to Contemporary Poetry and Poetics
One of the hallmarks of FIELD magazine has always been its attention to what poets have to say about poetry. Many of these essays--by William Stafford, Denise Levertov, Gary Snyder, Adrienne Rich, Donald Hall, Robert Bly, and Sandra McPherson, among others--have become classics. This revised and expanded collection of essays from the magazine provides a rich and stimulating perspective on the state of contemporary poetry, as seen through the eyes of the poets themselves.
Table of Contents
Preface • THE PROCESS OF WRITING • A Way of Writing — William Stafford • Work and Inspiration: Inviting the Muse — Denise Levertov • Poetic Process? — Margaret Atwood • Goatfoot, Milktongue, Twinbird: The Psychic Origins of Poetic Form — Donald Hall • Reflections on the Origins of Poetic Form — Robert Bly • Portrait of the Writer as a Fat Man: Some Subjective Ideas or Notions on the Care & Feeding of Prose Poems — Russell Edson • Poetry and Science: The Science of Poetry/The Poetry of Science — Miroslav Holub • Gorky Street: Syntax and Context — Dennis Schmitz • The Two-Tone Line, Blues Ideology, and the Scrap Quilt — Sandra McPherson • THE POETIC LINE: A SYMPOSIUM • The Working Line — Sandra McPherson • A Response to “The Working Line” — James Wright • Further Reflections on Line and the Poetic Voice — John Haines • The Line — Donald Hall • Some Thoughts about Lines — Shirley Kaufman • A Note on Prose, Verse and the Line — William Matthews • Some Thoughts about the Line — Charles Simic • THE IMAGE: A SYMPOSIUM • Image and “Images” — Charles Simic • Notes on the Image: Body and Soul — Donald Hall • Recognizing the Image as a Form of Intelligence — Robert Bly • Image and Language — Russell Edson • Noun/Object/Image — Marvin Bell • POETRY AND VALUES • Some Remarks on “Literature and Reality” — Günter Eich • Meanings of Poetry — Jean Follain • Poetry, Community & Climax — Gary Snyder • Some Notes on the Gazer Within — Larry Levis • The Bite of the Muskrat: Judging Contemporary Poetry — David Young • Not Your Flat Tire, My Flat Tire: Transcending the Self in Contemporary Poetry — Alberta Turner • Stone Soup: Contemporary Poetry and the Obsessive Image — David Walker • Language: The Poet as Master and Servant — David Young • Second Honeymoon: Some Thoughts on Translation — David Young • Here and There: The Use of Place in Contemporary Poetry — Shirley Kaufman • Eden and My Generation — Larry Levis • A Taxable Matter — C. D. Wright • PORTRAITS AND SELF-PORTRAITS • Urgent Masks: An Introduction to John Ashbery’s Poetry — David Shapiro • Poetry, Personality and Death — Galway Kinnell • Poetry, Personality and Wholeness: A Response to Galway Kinnell — Adrienne Rich • Charles Wright at Oberlin — Charles Wright • Secrets: Beginning to Write Them Out — Sandra McPherson • Lessons in Form — Laura Jensen • Body and Soul: Three Poets on Their Maladies • Charles Simic: My Insomnia and I • Shirley Kaufman:Backache, Poemache, and Botz • Lee Upton: The Closest Work • Notes on Contributors • Acknowledgments