 | Poetry in Person: Twenty-five Years of Conversation with America's Poets |
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Product Description
"In the fall of 1970, at the New School in Greenwich Village, a new teacher posted a flyer on the wall," begins Alexander Neubauer's introduction to this remarkable book. "It read 'Meet Poets and Poetry, with Pearl London and Guests.'" Few students responded. No one knew Pearl London, the daughter of M. Lincoln Schuster, cofounder of Simon & Schuster. But the seminar's first guests turned out to be John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich, and Robert Creely. Soon W. S. Merwin followed, then Mark Strand and Galway Kinnell.
London invited poets to bring their drafts to class, to discuss their work in progress and the details of vision and revision that brought a poem to its final version. From Maxine Kumin in 1973 to Eamon Grennan in 1996, including Amy Clampitt, Marilyn Hacker, Paul Muldoon, Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, and U.S. poet laureates Robert Hass, Robert Pinsky, Louise Glück, and Charles Simic, the book follows an extraordinary range of poets as they create their poems and offers numerous illustrations of the original drafts, which bring their processes to light. With James Merrill, London discusses autobiography and subterfuge; with Galway Kinnell, his influential notion that the new nature poem must include the city and not exclude man; with June Jordan, "Poem in Honor of South African Women" and the question of political poetry and its uses. Published here for the first time, the conversations are intimate, funny, irreverent, and deeply revealing. Many of the drafts under discussion—Robert Hass's "Meditation at Lagunitas," Edward Hirsch's "Wild Gratitude," Robert Pinsky's "The Want Bone"—turned into seminal works in the poets' careers.
There has never been a gathering like Poetry in Person, which brings us a wealth of understanding and unparalleled access to poets and their drafts, unraveling how a great poem is actually made.
- Amazon Sales Rank: #562293 in Books
- Published on: 2010-03-16
- Released on: 2010-03-16
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.35" h x 6.44" w x 8.26" l, 1.36 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 368 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780307269676
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee.
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. For almost 30 years, beginning in 1970, Pearl London taught a course at the New School called Works in Progress, to which she asked famous poets to come with drafts of new poems in hand. This book is a series of transcripts of discussions from those classes, taken from a series of previously unknown recordings found after London's death and edited by Neubauer (Nature's Thumbprint). Represented in these 23 conversations are such acknowledged masters of late 20th–century poetry as Robert Hass, Lucille Clifton, Amy Clampitt, and Charles Simic. London was a probing, highly intelligent reader who coaxes statements from her poets that perhaps no one else could: We both love and hate our parents, and it's difficult to accept that because we would like only to love them, Frank Bidart tells her. She goads Edward Hirsch into saying, I feel unmasked! I want to put my jacket on. More than anything else, though, she gets poets to explain their craft in sometimes shockingly clear terms, as when Muriel Rukeyser states, A poem is not about anything, as you who have been working in poems surely know. 22 photos. (Mar. 18)
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* From 1970 to 1998, Pearl London conducted a "Works in Progress" poetry course at the New School in Greenwich Village, inviting poets to bring manuscripts of poems they were struggling with and offer them up for dissection and discussion. London, daughter of M. Lincoln Schuster of Simon & Schuster, was no ordinary teacher, and her guests were nothing less than nascent literary giants. These remarkably candid and inspiring conversations about aesthetic and moral matters would have faded from memory if a stash of forgotten cassette tapes hadn't been found after London's death in 2003. Writer and former New Schooler Neubauer selected and judiciously edited 23 exciting interviews, which, accompanied by photographs of the poets and reproductions of their manuscripts, reveal what poets do and why they do it. Maxine Kumin and Robert Hass have opposite views about abstraction in poetry. June Jordan speaks of poetry and politics. Galway Kinnell calls for a new form of nature poems. Derek Walcott speaks of the "honesty of the line." Extraordinary moments with Frank Bidart, Amy Clampitt, Lucille Clifton, Edward Hirsch, Li-Young Lee, Philip Levine, and James Merrill create a treasury of passionate and enlightening exchanges that illuminate the very life force of poetry. --Donna Seaman
About the Author
Alexander Neubauer is the author of two previous works of nonfiction, Conversations on Writing Fiction: Interviews with Thirteen Distinguished Teachers of Fiction Writing in America and the acclaimed Nature's Thumbprint: The New Genetics of Personality. His book reviews and essays have appeared in Time Out New York, Poets & Writers, and other periodicals. For many years he taught fiction writing at the New School in New York City. Born and raised in Manhattan, he now lives in Cornwall, Connecticut.
Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
By A. M. Klein
Open this handsome volume to any page and you will be absorbed into insightful and intriguing discussions of the creative process of some of the greatest poets working during the last forty years. An acclaimed teacher at the New School in New York invited acclaimed poets to her class, where they discussed their writing in depth. The sessions were taped, rediscovered in recent years, and several dozen elegantly edited with introductions that give helpful context. The result is a work that will inform not just any reader of poetry but anyone fascinated by the creative act.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
By Mary Hersch
I bought this book for a paper I was writing on Louise Gluck, and ended up reading and liking the whole thing. I love all the different bases that the book covers. First of all, the informed, spontaneous conversation between a writer and a careful reader--which reminded me of that collection of interviews from the Believer, "Writers talking to Writers." And then the workshop aspect of it--of students being about to ask the writers directly about their work and their process. And then, finally, the drafts that the poets bring in with them to the workshops (many of these are included in the book), that show the evolution and the fluidity of the poems. Added to all of this are the author's short but illuminating introductions to the poets; I wasn't familiar with some of them, but he did a great job putting them quickly in context. All in all, a really great book!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
By mary brogan-sizemore
Inspiring collection of interviews by a dedicated teacher of poetry-writing who has persuaded working poets to come to her classroom. Check the Table of Contents for an index of great modern poets who visited. This book provides a valuable insider's view of how a poet thinks and works. An important piece from each writer-guest is published. I suggest that one read a selection daily, as a poetry-devotional. Not nightly, becqause the ideas and feelings ignite the reader. For bed-time reading, I prefer a cozy mystery novel. "Poetry in Person" will wake you right up.
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