Lehman, David

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Oxford Collection - need I say more?
An Invitation into the World of American Poetry
The Gold Standard, Updated At Last
Unbalanced and Biased
Great book

The Oxford Book of American Poetry
David Lehman
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 019516251X

Book Description

Edited by one of the most recognized and respected contemporary poets and anthologists, The Oxford Book of American Poetry is a comprehensive, one-volume collection of American poetry from its seventeenth-century origins to the present. Comprised of over two-hundred poets, from Whitman to Plath, Lowell to Ginsberg, this anthology contains the best writing in the field and establishes a standard wider and more inclusive than any other of its kind. Arranged chronologically, this compilation encompasses major currents of American poetry, all the while focusing the reader's attention on the important figures. With biographical headnotes and contemporary and relevant poets, The Oxford Book of American Poetry is a rich collection that provides essential material for readers for years to come.

Customer Reviews:

Oxford Collection - need I say more?.......2007-02-09

An amazing collection - thorough - thoughtful - and a delight to browse through.

An Invitation into the World of American Poetry.......2006-12-19

If you love poetry, one book will never satisfy your hunger or lifelong search for poem perfection. Each book offers a unique perspective and The Oxford Book of American Poetry seeks to present an American viewpoint with over 200 poets revealing their most intimate thoughts. The poems warmly present insights into the viewpoint of the poets as they comment on cultural norms or decry conditions of their times.

The first poems seem to set a tradition of extensive stories to blend observations in nature with descriptions of insights into moments. Poems like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Bridge" have a soft beauty and thoughtful reflective quality. "To One in Paradise" by Edgar Allen Poe is stunning and revelatory in its romantic appeal. "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee" also appear.

Many of the poems retain a historical significance and present a record of the emotions felt by those viewing the birth of new freedoms. The delicious culinary poem about "Hasty-Pudding" was a sweet surprise.

"I am the poet of the body,
And I am the poet of the soul."
~Walt Whitman

I will say that I became entranced by Walt Whitman's enthusiastic portrayal of life and his poems are an especially luminous moment that spans across many pages, which are needed because The Song of Myself (1855 edition) is included and takes up 48 pages! His soul seems to dance between moments as if infusing all he observes with an expansive optimism steeped in appreciation for all that he experiences. I loved these lines from "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd:"

"Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and cedars dusk and dim."

While most of the first 100 or so pages were completely new to me, hope dawned as I started to discover familiar favorites like "Wild Nights" by Emily Dickinson. "The Road Not Taken" appeared along the way and "This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams reveals beautiful images of cool plums from an icebox . My favorite poem by Elinor Wylie did not make it into this book, but I was pleasantly surprised by "The Puritan's Ballad" which is very sensual:

"Within his arms I feared to sink
Where lions shook their manes,
And dragons drawn in azure ink
Leapt quickened by his veins."

If you crave the sensuality of language and longing, there is much to enjoy. While most of the poems do not focus on romantic longings, there are quite a few sensual poems. Denise Levertov explores male longing in his poem: "The Mutes" where he presents a striking reality.

"Swan and Shadow" by John Hollander is actually shaped like a swan on a lake with its reflection and was a lovely visual surprise. Billy Collins' "Introduction to Poetry" appears along with "Shoveling Snow with Buddha" and "Dharma." Rachel Hadas presents cool crisp images in "Riverside Park:"

"...strolling lovers vanish in the glare
flung from the river by the westering sun.
I can hardly claim to be alone.
Nevertheless, of all whom autumn's new
russet brocades are draping, none is you."

While longing and desire do seem present in many of the poems, the sheer desire of the poet to communicate the experiences seems to be the main theme throughout. Dana Gioia's "Summer Storm" brings a moment as close to our experience as it can possibly be in a poem. Rain from a sudden thunderstorm is almost symbolic of a sudden attraction that is highly memorable.

Some of the poets featured in this anthology include: Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, Francis Scott Key, Julia Ward Howe, Herman Melville, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dorothy Parker, E.E. Cummings, W. H. Auden, Kenneth Rexroth and Sylvia Plath.

It is my theory that if you find one or two new poems, then you have succeeded in your reading mission. Throughout this book I found many poems I not only liked, but I loved. Most of the poems were completely new to me and do span such an extensive time period (Poets born between 1616 and 1950), it is more than likely impossible to find all these poems in your own lifetime if you were to try to read a book by each of the poets. This is a much easier way to find poets you might enjoy and then you can select a few poetry books by poets you truly think you will love.

If you enjoy American Poetry, then "The Best American Poetry 2005" may also intrigue you. I'm working my way through the "Best American Poetry" series and have been impressed with how each book paints a picture of a year in the life of America.

~The Rebecca Review

P.S. If you enjoy poetry, I think you may love poems
by Brian Douthit and Diane Anjoue. The book "Eyes of the Poet"
is truly beautiful.

The Gold Standard, Updated At Last.......2006-11-07

The Oxford Book of American Poetry has always been the best collection of American poetry, even when it hadn't been updated for decades. It was the standard text at UC Berkeley in my poetry classes taught by Prof. Robert Hass, a remarkable man and a brilliant teacher, who now has the distinctions not only of having been named America's Poet Laureate, but also of having been included in this latest edition. The Oxford Press has one again put out a volume without equal.

Unbalanced and Biased.......2006-06-11

An anthology of this type should capture representative selections of all worthy poets; given that personal bias, I find this to be an unbalanced treatment of American verse. Walt Whitman gets 68 pages (as though his work is not readily available elsewhere), while the entire contribution of Stanley Kunitz (just to note a single example) is reflected in one short poem--and many other fine poets are slighted in this lamentable fashion.

Glance through the table of contents and browse the volume itself, and you'll find tiny snippets of some of our best poets, engulfed by huge selections of the few that this editor considers laudable.

It's unfortunate that Oxford should have issued a biased and arbitrary selection of this sort, which is of very limited use to those interested in the breadth of achievement of American poets. Many other anthologies offer more generous selections of accomplished poets, and will, one imagines, be much more frequently consulted by readers looking for a favorite poem.

Great book.......2006-06-01

The Oxford Book of American Poetry is a fine anthology of most of America's premier poets. While, as one reviewed pointed out, the South is a bit under-represented, the collection is still excellent and offers the best that American poetry has to offer. The book is strongest in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with the more modern stuff not quite as good or as generously selected--most contemporary poets have very little of their work represented here.
This book's greatest non-literary asset, though, is its affordability. While a Norton anthology can run between $70 and $80 (and they are usually worth it), this book just costs $35 and is even cheaper here on Amazon. The Oxford Book of American Poetry is not only a good anthology, it's a steal.
And yes, this book really does look impressive on the shelf (though of course it won't be on the shelf often, if you're a poetry lover).

The Best American Poetry 2006 (Best American Poetry)

Average customer rating:

A wonderful sampling of contemporary poetry
Good to keep up with current poetry
Ok
Poems Selected for their Modern Beauty
More Keillor than Kleinzahler. What, is that a problem?

The Best American Poetry 2006 (Best American Poetry)
Billy Collins
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft

ASIN: 0743257596

Book Description

Billy Collins, one of our most beloved poets, has chosen poems of wit, humor, imagination, and surprise, in a range of styles and forms, for The Best American Poetry 2006. The result is a celebration of the pleasures of poetry.

In his charming and candid introduction Collins explains how he chose seventy-five poems from among the thousands he considered. With insightful comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's thought-provoking foreword, The Best American Poetry 2006 is a brilliant addition to a series that links the most noteworthy verse and prose poems of our time to a readership as discerning as it is devoted to the art of poetry.

Customer Reviews:

A wonderful sampling of contemporary poetry.......2007-05-13

Since a great many contemporary poems leave me confused or disappointed, I was delighted to connect positively with so many of the seventy-five poems selected by guest editor, Billy Collins. The editor's Introduction brought insights that contributed to my enjoyment, as well as providing guidance to would-be poets. Of course, the guest editor makes a huge contribution to the success of this annual series, and Billy Collins has ferreted out some treasures for 2006.

Good to keep up with current poetry .......2007-03-09

It is good for those who are not inclined to keep up with currently published poets to see the choices of a poet laureate.

Ok.......2006-12-14

The only favorite poem of mine is by Kay Ryan. The rest of the stuff is mediocre..

Poems Selected for their Modern Beauty.......2006-11-20

In my mind, poetry books should be a little like a movie, comfortable like your favorite chair and mostly an unforgettable experience. I will agree that most poems are only appealing if they somehow find their way into your psyche and heart in a way that is comforting, shocking, beautiful or even soul revealing.

Each poet is a world unto themselves and each poem is a door into a magical world where you either love or dislike the pathway you have chosen. The beauty of poetry is in how we vary in how we relate to any particular poem.

In "The Best American Poetry 2006," I found so many doorways to new thoughts it was as if this book contained 20 worlds from which to view life and its many moments invisibly charged with crystalline emotions, edgy contemplations, tantalizing twists and taunting mysteries.

I was relieved to read that even Billy Collins was unfamiliar with so many of these modern poets, although I was delighted to have found so many new poets whose work I enjoyed. Being a fan of Billy Collins' poetry seems to have enhanced my reading experience. His humor seems to jump out from various poems in a way that you might find his poems funny.

The surprising elements seem to mirror some of his own poetic genius and his love for scene painting with delicious sentences makes many of these poems comforting escapes into a certain normality infused with the inevitability of surprise and a subtle infusion of emotional complexity. Just as in life, some of the poems have a mind of their own and take off in playful directions, almost guiding the poet's mind in a temptation of language lust.

If you are looking for poems with highly complex structures and obscure words you need to look up in a dictionary, this does not produce such literary excitement, but what it does produce is a variety of emotional responses. These range from outright elation and laughing to deeply profound moods born of a life lived with longing and moments of reflection and regret.

From the fascinating foreword by David Lehman to the contributor's notes and comments, this book is filled with poems, stories of modern poets and journeys through worlds we know and love. We are at times riding on a boat writing a poem that sounds more like a letter (The Ferry), entering a bibliomaniac's world where a book is more appealing than the sight of a woman (Refusal to Notice Beautiful Women) and returning to past moments of great romantic significance as in the poem by Beth Ann Fennelly.

In Sarah Gorham's poem she speaks of two different ideas, but they merge and a beautiful image of souls falling like stars descends on your imagination. A poem about a Mermaid brings a sweet playfulness to the book and one poem takes you on a jaunty ride into rhythmic pleasure. There are a few poems with shocking conclusions that are quite funny and others that left me wondering how the poet was able to survive emotionally all these years to write about such disaster of the heart. My heart was captured by the poems of Kim Addonizio, Debora Greger, Mary Oliver, Mary Jo Salter, Terence Winch, Alison Townsend (she had me in tears), Reb Livingston (reminded me of childhood) and so many more. I think Dean Young has an interesting take on an idea from Alice in Wonderland.

I love the rebellious spirit in "Briefcase of Sorrow" where Richard Newman teasingly takes on a quote by Frances Mayes and literally paints an image based off a few words that seem to imply failure...and the poem races past the finish line and we feel like cheering, even silently. I will admit to the difficulty of even extracting a few lines to explain the beauty of the poems, because honestly the sentences are tightly woven together with meanings the reader could miss without the entire picture being painted in a set sequence of events that draws you in and presents clarity that often leads to a mysterious conclusions with a variety of interpretations. Instead of a moment here and a line there, you receive a much fuller experience and it is also emotionally satisfying.

Throughout The Best American Poetry 2006 you will find deliciously modern poems with pop culture references and plenty of moments you can relate to on a daily basis. This book is not filled with poems gathered from molding collections dusty with neglect found in some forgotten library. This is a collection of living breathing poems that sing the songs of seventy-five contemporary poets who reveal to us the life we are currently living and in that is the beauty of this reading experience.

If you are looking for modern romantic poetry, I can highly recommend "Eyes of the Poet" or "Poetry Collection de Jolie-Laide." For a truly magical experience you may also love " Something Familiar" by Kat Ricker. To truly say you have lived, you may also want to listen to Billy Collins read his poems. If you love this book, you will adore his poems. As a poet myself and a reader of many poetry books over the past few years, I can recommend this book as a welcome addition to anyone interested in collecting modern poems.

~The Rebecca Review

More Keillor than Kleinzahler. What, is that a problem?.......2006-10-20

I like this book, an annual publication with this year's selection and introduction by Billy Collins. I doubt that I would select these particular 75 as the "best" of the year if I were the emperor, but these poems are very readable, quite varied, and their subjects are often of considerable human interest, including several that are quite humorous. The sources include such varied publications as The New Yorker, Five Points and New American Writing. You don't need an MFA, an encyclopedia of mythology or a French dictionary to read it. Most lines make sense! Every poem has an expanded note at the back of the book that tells a little about the author and (in most cases) a little about the author's view of the poem. Some people would hate this feature, but I liked it.

My criticism? Almost the same as my praise. The poems are a little too vanilla, a little too PBS/NPR. The selection seems to be aimed at an older, middle-class audience that fancies itself to still have some intellectual sea legs, but doesn't want to get off the cruise ship and mix with the locals (there - I said it). There's not much for the adventurous or those who are looking for challenges, experimentation, unusual verbal/mental stimulation, or points of view beyond 1 standard deviation. Those who are familiar with pop literary criticism will fit this book somewhere into the kleinzahler-keillor spectrum and probably takes sides accordingly. I lean toward the kleinzahler in my preferences, but would definitely put this book in the keillor camp. The poet demographics are largely older white men, though there is a sprinkling of females (several, actually), youth, other nationalities, and people of color. Geezers are capable of some good poetry, and this book gives some examples.

There were several poems that I enjoyed a lot. These include "Race" by Bao Phi, "Religion" by Robert Wrigley, "Briefcase of Sorrow" by Richard Newman, and "The Sharper the Berry" by Mark Pawlak.

Although not my favorite, the most memorable poem for me is "Towards some bright moment" by Stephen Dobyns. The poet describes a scene he witnessed in New York City where a blind woman is kicking and cursing her dog. I believe I witnessed the same scene. At the time and location that he describes in the poem, I also witnessed a blind woman hitting and cursing her dog. And like the poet, I have also thought about that event a lot since then. My conclusions were a little more trivial than his - "Only in New York," I thought. "Why didn't I call PETA," says he, to put both reactions in a very small nutshell. This scene seems like something out an R. Crumb comic, where one person's shock is another person's poem - and then that person's poem can inspire the first person. To activate this scenario, I join the club and write this almost-haiku:

blind woman
kicking her dog
Yeow! a poem's birth hurts.

A little bit of compulsive sociology: as noted above, most of the poets in this collection are relatively old. I made of list of birth years (extracted from those wonderful end notes), and the average age is 52. I believe there were 4 in their 20s, but 18 in their 60s, 3 in their 70s and one octogenarian. Like I said, some of these geezers can write.

The Best American Poetry 2005 (Best American Poetry)

Average customer rating:

Vivid Portraits of Mature Recollections
Best of the Best
the best american poetry 2005

The Best American Poetry 2005 (Best American Poetry)

Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Best American Poetry 2006 (Best American Poetry)
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ASIN: 0743257588

Book Description

This eagerly awaited volume in the celebrated Best American Poetry series reflects the latest developments and represents the state of the art today. Paul Muldoon, the distinguished poet and international literary eminence, has selected -- from a pool of several thousand published candidates -- the top seventy-five poems of the year.

With insightful comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's perspicacious foreword, The Best American Poetry 2005 is indispensable for every poetry enthusiast.

Customer Reviews:

Vivid Portraits of Mature Recollections.......2006-12-14

"Your burglaries leave no thumbprint
Mine, too, are silent
I do my best imagining at night,
And you do yours with the help of shadows.

Like actors rehearsing a play,
The dark ones withdrew
Into remote corners of the room
The rest of us sat in expectation
Of your burning oratory."

~ from Sunlight by Charles Simic

The maturity of the poems in The Best American Poetry 2005 is instantly apparent the moment you read "In View of the Fact" by A.R. Ammons. This is a deeply thoughtful collection of poems best addressed when you are in a contemplative mood. Within the pages there are many surprises, lovely conclusions and especially creative thought patterns. Sexuality and death seem to be themes throughout, but there is also humor and cleverly designed rhymes the wittiest poets must long to master.

"Ants" by Vicki Hudspith is especially comical while Mary Karr's poem about her son is especially heart-warming and leans more towards a serious realization of life's complexity within expectation. Richard Garcia's "Adam and Eve's Dog" lightens a topic most would find quite serious and Edward Field's poem of praise has a beautiful freeing conclusion with metaphorical appeal.

"If I were Japanese I'd write about magnolias
in March, how tonal, each bud long as a pencil,
sheathed in celadon suede, jutting from a cluster
of glossy leaves. I'd end the poem before anything
bloomed, end with rain swelling the buds
and the sheaths bursting, then falling to the grass
like a fairy's castoff slippers, like candy wrappers,
like spent firecrackers."
~ Beth Ann Fennelly, pg. 46

What I am most impressed by in this collection of poems, is the truthfulness and the straightforward invitation into this sincerity. There is a cleverness in the crafting of each idea (I Want to be Your Shoebox) and at times profound lessons can appear through the viewpoint of a poet who sees the world a little more intensely (The Poets March on Washington). Jane Hirshfield's "Burlap Sack" paints an image of bondage and freedom, while Linda Pastan reveals a different type of cultural freedom.

Paul Muldoon's selections also provide a consistent mood and his love for rhyme and complex sentence structures invites you into a world of poems that reveal intricate details of your own life. At times his selections are realistic and edgy with mature considerations and at other times he has selected profound moments to inspire a more heartfelt appreciation for beauty. Both ideas seem to weave together to form a painting of how life is really lived in a realistic setting, as opposed to a more romantic rendering of ideas within a dreamscape of fantasy poems. Now and then, a line in a poem is so highly significant you can read the entire poem and then suddenly awaken upon a stunning moment.

"Wanting the tight buds of my loneliness
to swell and split, not die in wanting.
It was why I rushed through everything,
why I tore away at the perpetual gauze
between me and the stinging world"
~ pg. 133, Chase Twichell

I can also highly recommend the 2006 edition of The Best American Poetry, which is enhanced with pop culture references and a distinctly contemporary mood. As with all the books edited by David Lehman, the "Foreword" is well worth reading. David Lehman's experience in the world of poetry reveals ideas that will be of great interest to anyone interested in poetry culture.

~The Rebecca Review

Best of the Best.......2005-12-07

BAP2005 surely is a high point for the quality of the volume's poetry and the number of internet offerings included.

the best american poetry 2005.......2005-10-07

first class condition and prompt delivery Thank you

The Best American Poetry 2001 (Best American Poetry)

Average customer rating:

Poet's Personal Stories and Pleasures
why nobody reads poetry.
What is poetry?
The usual best and worst of poetry
Beauty that is poetry...!

The Best American Poetry 2001 (Best American Poetry)
Robert Hass
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0743203836

Book Description

The annual publication of The Best American Poetry is an eagerly awaited event among poetry fans across the country. This year's volume in the critically acclaimed series presents American poetry in all its dazzling variety at a moment of extraordinary richness and originality.

Guest editor Robert Hass, a former Poet Laureate and a central figure in the poetry world, brings his passionate intelligence to The Best American Poetry 2001. In his engaging introduction, Hass writes that after sifting through dozens of literary magazines, he "found that there were large numbers of poems that gave me pleasure, seemed to have inventive force, or intellectual passion or surprise." The works he selected are diverse in every way and have only their excellence in common. Ranging from the traditional to the innovative, the book features important new poems from Anne Carson, Robert Creeley, Michael Palmer, Robert Pinsky, and Adrienne Rich; rare posthumous works by Elizabeth Bishop and James Schuyler; and poems by marvelous newcomers like Amy England, Olena Kalytiak Davis, and Rachel Zucker.

With comments from the poets illuminating their work, and series editor David Lehman's always entertaining foreword assessing the current state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2001 is a book every reader of poetry will want to have.

Customer Reviews:

Poet's Personal Stories and Pleasures.......2006-12-29

"We're bent in the garden planting spring bulbs, pulling up
weeds, and I'm wondering how much longer we'll crouch here
on our knees in the damp soil sorting things out. Guardians
of shrubs and flowers, the first wild cyclamen sipping the sun.
We watch over each other as we watch over our garden,
woolly branches of cacti, fiery pokers of aloes in winter.
Especially during a long drought, after a snowfall, or following
the arcs of missiles on our screen. Flurries of extra caring.
Some mornings we hang on to each other as if we're afraid to let go."
~ pg. 126, Shirley Kaufman

The fascination I currently have with The Best American Poetry series seems born of my curiosity to see how each editor creates a world of poetry they feel possessed to love. The choices made by Robert Hass reflect so accurately his loves and dislikes. You can live in a short moment of his life through reflecting on what it is he enjoys about the selections in this book.

Each poet sees the world so uniquely, but many times they seem to write from a place of loneliness, the desire to speak to another soul of similar substance. This becomes very apparent in the personal stories of pleasure and pain, emotional and real, fresh and trying. At times lines from a poem feel distant and sad while others spring from the page, pouncing on you with the joy of a happy kitten. Poetry has its own rewards and good poetry is the reward for searching through a lot of moments, that while not mediocre to many, may be to you. Your personal taste figures in highly in what you will enjoy and to one person, a poem may mean nothing, and to another, it is the world.

For this reason, I try to view poems from many perspectives. I will say that the poems in this particular volume can be especially perplexing. The truth is, you may read this book one day and feel completely disconnected and come back and read it on another day and wonder what you were thinking.

The mood of this volume is especially intellectual and complex with many literary references, like discussions of the death of Virgina Woolf and the writings of Dostoevsky. The poems are mysteries to be solved and require your full attention and don't seem to immediately welcome you into their intimacy. But then you happen upon a poem like Linda Gregg's "The Singers Change, The Music Goes On" and you know you have happened upon a moment of truth that will endure.

"We live our myth in the recurrence,
pretending we will return another day.
Like the morning coming every morning.
The truth is we come back as a choir."

Allen Grossman's "Enough rain for Agnes Walquist" has some very intriguing thoughts:

" -a smooth stone
passed in a kiss from the mouth
of a Fate into my open mouth
amidst odors of metal
and slamming doors
at the dark end of a railway car
as the train was leaning
on a curve and slowing
to stop-is lost. Lost"

Alice Noteley's poem must be printed sideways because the lines are so long it can't possibly fit on the pages any other way:

"always near the border and never in the snows come again and the purple sinister sky
so I can die and read the books they leave me always alive the letters and the letters letters."

Robert Pinsky's "Jersey Rain has beautiful images of the moon where he talks about "The chilly liquefaction of day to night." James Richardson writes "Ten-second Essays" that are numbered and give you snippets of moments to enjoy and expand upon in your own mind. A few of the lines are quite funny, like: "Say nothing as if it were news" or witty like: "The road not taken is the part of you not taking the road."

Mary Ruefle's "Furtherness" is especially beautiful in the most poignant of ways as she writes about death. The poem I loved the most was "Apple" by Susan Stewart which made me long for the Apple tree in my grandmother's yard.

"You can roast late apples
in the ashes. You can run
them in slices on a stick.
you can turn the stem to
find the letter of your love."

Most poets will find Bernard Welt's "I stopped writing poetry" rather amusing. I loved his line: "It's a terrible thing to receive exactly the attention you want." The entire poem gives insight into why poets write in the first place and any poet could relate to: "still a breeze reaches me from time to time fragrant of verse."

If you read this book and stopped at page 58, you would miss an entire world! I was so happy I kept reading.

~The Rebecca Review

why nobody reads poetry........2006-09-05

want to know why nobody reads poetry anymore? read the first 58 pages of this book and you will know. 58 pages is all of my free time that i could justify wasting. page after page of dull words thrown up by pretentious people with next to nothing to say. truly horrible.

What is poetry?.......2005-01-03

There has been much debate over the past ten years of what constitutes poetry. This book involves a broad scope of what is now considered poetry and why very few people "like" poetry. To sum it up, "good grief!"

The usual best and worst of poetry.......2003-05-04

Nearly every edition in this series contains I like and poems I hate. It really does depend on the editor's tastes. Since Hass is big on ambiguity, language poetry, and fragmented narratives, many of the poems here follow that. My favorites include: Bly, Rich, Lydia Davis, James Galvin. I think overall this is one of the top few books in this series. I can already see that I'm not going to like the 2002 edited by Creeley

Beauty that is poetry...!.......2002-07-10

...And if there is a democracy in writing, indeed, it is poetry. The Best American Poetry 2001 is a compilation of great poems from various writers and covers wide range of subjects, from sad to happy and from abstract to everyday situation proems are covered in this great book. Some poems touch your heart, others make you laugh, and some leave an everlasting impact upon you... best part is that all of them co-exist in this great book. This book is the best companion that a young developing poet can have, this book is the best refenrence a mature poet could use... and this very book is something that a very common man can refer to. Poetry starts where prose ends, it can say one paragraph in a few words... it can summarize an article into a stanza. It can trigger a war of words and it has the power to hold great romance in form of sonnets. Poetry is something that all of us associate to... some refer to it in the hour of crisis, the others turn to it in the moment of celebration. This book is indeed deep... it could well be termed a perfect mosaic, an extraordinary collage, a magically colourful painting... one that has been completed by many great artists, and it is a book that could leave an impact of many young writers who could well be the future artists. The Best American Poetry 2001 is a must to read - Its somethig that we have to keep!

Average customer rating:

One of my fav books of all time
Erudite and entertaining
Destiny
Whodunit: Superb Sleuthing of the detective novel, itself

Perfect Murder: A Study in Detection
David Lehman
Manufacturer: Free Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0029197708

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<B>Penzler Pick, May 2000:</B> There have been numerous attempts to provide an overview of the mystery fiction genre in all its diversity. One of the first and, I would argue, the best is Howard Haycraft's Murder for Pleasure, written in 1941 when virtually no one considered it worthwhile to write about this back-of-the-bus literary genre. For its ground-breaking place in literary history; for its readable, lively, and literate prose; and for its comprehensiveness and intelligent insight into the books and authors who would stand the test of time this work towers above all others.

Julian Symons wrote Mortal Consequences in 1972 and it too is brilliant, though far more controversial in its appraisals. (In the copy Symons inscribed to me, he accurately describes it as "material for disagreement and argument," following one of our many disagreements and arguments--the one we had when he failed to accept the enduring brilliance of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novels.)

David Lehman's The Perfect Murder was originally published in 1987 and has at last been reissued in paperback, with a new chapter on mystery novels of the 1990s. While Lehman is as opinionated as Symons, he is more generous in his taste and seems to prefer the best writers. (This actually means that his taste coincides with mine, which suggests that it is impeccable!)

Although mainly chronological in structure, The Perfect Murder jumps around some, even including references to modern films while discussing old books. Oddly, the chapter on Sherlock Holmes precedes the chapter on Edgar Allan Poe, but somehow it all makes sense. His list of favorite books at the end is one of the most intelligent selections I've ever encountered--with the exception of The Name of the Rose, which is impenetrable, and The Singing Detective, which just tries too hard to be cool.

If you are interested in mystery fiction but know little beyond the obvious classics, read this to be the biggest expert on your block. If you're already the biggest expert on your block, read it to learn how much you don't know, and be grateful for its perceptive insights. --Otto Penzler

Book Description

In this lively, enjoyable look at the best American and British detective fiction, David Lehman investigates the mystery of mysteries: the profound satisfactions we get from evil, disorder, mayhem, and deception--that we know will be put right by the last page.

As Lehman shows, the detective story draws deeply from ancient storytelling traditions. The mystery's conventions--the locked room, the clue "hidden" in plain sight, the diabolical double, the villainous least likely subject--work on us as childhood fairy tales do; they prey upon our darkest fears, taking us to the brink of the unbearable before restoring a comforting sense of order. The myth of Oedipus, for example, contains the essential elements of a whodunit, with the twist that the murderer the detective pursues is himself.

With their wisecracking gumshoe heroes, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler fashioned an existential romance out of the detective novel. More recent writers such as Ross MacDonald, P. D. James, and Ruth Rendell have raised the genre to a new level of psychological sophistication. Yet the form evolves still, and Lehman guides us to the epistemological riddles of Jorge Luis Borges and Umberto Eco, who challenge the notion of a knowable truth. Originally published in 1989, this new edition features an additional chapter on the mystery novels of the 1990s.

"A lively study of the development and varieties of the detective story since Poe, its relations with other forms high and low, and the latter-day appropriation of its techniques by such writers as Borges and Eco. . . . A thoroughly intelligent and readable book." --Richard Wilbur, Pulitzer-Prize winning poet

David Lehman is the series editor of both the The Best American Poetry, published by Scribner, and the Poets on Poetry series published by the University of Michigan Press. He is a former Guggenheim Fellow in poetry, a vice president of the National Book Critics Circle, and the author of several books of criticism and collections of poems.

Customer Reviews:

One of my fav books of all time.......2004-06-07

David Lehman investigates the development of mystery fiction, defining improvements and refinements, comparing auth
2000
ors, detectives, plots and techniques.

If, as he observes, the murder in the most inspired detective novel is perfect, it's not because of its solution but because of its artful conception. The first clue is in the basic premise of mystery fiction. Speaking, as it does, of such basic matters as life and death, quest and query, fear and the unknown, the detective novel assumes that the puzzles of life can and will be solved. The reader turns from the ordinariness of life to the author's promise that around each corner lurks the possibility of menace, that conspiracy fills the air, that we have every right to be paranoid, but in spite of it all, everything will turn out all right.

Another clue: Reading mystery fiction provides us with a harmless and vicarious way of releasing our homicidal instincts, says Lehman, allowing us to murder again and again without having to suffer the consequences. Thus, he concludes, reading mysteries leads us away from performing the act of murder.

"Our love of mystery is matched only by our longing for certainty," he writes. "and because we find it hard to tolerate the condition of doubt and guilt in shich we are destined to live."

Lehman's love of mysteries and his eagerness to share favorite books and characters lends charm and emphasizes his major points. A chronological bibliography is included and divided into related genres, critical documents and resource books. That proves to be a banquet of delicious additional reading on the subject. Another delight is his review of 15 of his favorite mystery novels.

Read this one to gain new insight and a deeper appreciation for the mystery genre.

Erudite and entertaining.......2003-12-28

I have a few of books on the crime/mystery genre. Some of them are overly academic (dry and professorial) while others are labors of love written by fans (passionate but not always insightful or even factually correct). Then there are those books that are still wonderful to read but are a bit out of date (the Haycroft, Keating and Symon books, for instance).

Lehman's book avoids all these pitfalls. He's a scholar but his prose moves along and is never fussy. He covers a lot of ground but never sails into vague generalities. And his recommended reading list (always a highlight in this sort of book) is nicely put together, with a good mix of old works and new.

If I had to buy a single volume for someone looking to expand his or her perspective on the history of the crime-mystery story, this would be the one.

Destiny.......2000-12-15

Finally in paperback, "The Perfect Murder" will provide intriguing delight for both newcomers and accomplished literary detectives. With this new twenty-first-century insight into the murder mystery, Lehman has now made the study of the Detective Novel as morally and historically important as any in literature today, "not only" in Lehman's words "because of the detective novel's debt to human nature but because of the possibly larger debt that human behavior owes to detective novels."

Whodunit: Superb Sleuthing of the detective novel, itself.......2000-11-09

His books covers it all: history, stories, the idea of doubles and masks, the resolution of good and evil after World Wars through the detective who resolves to bring order out of chaos. David Lehman talks about the detective novel as one genre that crosses all classes. Given this election and all the open questions, let's delight in some sleuthing. We are asking Whowonit in America. His book is a Whodunit. This book is fun and includes many of David's Favorites throughout history, including Poe's Murder of the Rue Morgue and even spy novels such as LaCarre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. If you delight in detective novels, you'll savor this read.

Shakespeare (New York Review Books Classics)

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A treasure...
Makes Shakespeare hum!!!

Shakespeare (New York Review Books Classics)
Mark Van Doren
Manufacturer: NYRB Classics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1590171683
Release Date: 2005-08-31

Book Description

This legendary book by an esteemed poet and beloved professor at Columbia University features a series of smart, witty, deeply perceptive essays about each of Shakespeare's plays, together with a further discussion of the poems. Writing with an incomparable knowledge of his subject but without a hint of pedantry, Van Doren elucidates both the astonishing boldness and myriad subtleties of Shakespeare's protean art. His Shakespeare is a book to be treasured by both new and longtime students of the Bard.

Customer Reviews:

A treasure..........2005-12-27

How often have you encountered a book on Shakespeare or his works that attains a level of writing that is often heart-meltingly gorgeous, even at times comparable to the beauty of the Shakespeare quotations it contains? Probably only once, and this is the book.

A helpful introduction by David Lehman reminds us that Mark Van Doren was a celebrated professor of literature at Columbia University, and a poet of considerable accomplishment, who served as mentor to a long list of students who later achieved great things. In his courses he generally spoke without notes, and this 1939 book on Shakespeare's works was also written without notes or references, other than a well-thumbed one-volume edition of the works, printed in about 1906.

Any modest power of description which I might possess fails utterly for this exquisite book. Instead, let me give a sample of Van Doren's commentary: "It may well be that Shakespeare in 'The Tempest' is telling us for the last time, or consciously for the last time, about the world. But what he is telling us cannot be simple, or we could agree that it is this or that. Perhaps it is this: that the world is not simple. Or, mysteriously enough, that it is what we all take it to be. Any set of symbols, moved close to this play, lights up as if in an electric field. Its meaning, in other words, is precisely as rich as the human mind, and it says that the world is what it is. But what the world is cannot be said in a sentence. Or even in a poem as complete and beautiful as 'The Tempest.'"

Makes Shakespeare hum!!!.......1998-05-27

I have always loved Shakespeare but, even though I have studied it, sometimes, he is a little difficult to pin down on what exactly he is saying or meaning and it is often hard to get the feel or mood for certain scenes. After all, he was a playwright, not a journalist! And he wrote five centuries ago in the idiomatic English of that time. This critique is absolutely brilliant. Van Doren's feelings on Shakespeare are that he wrote his plays to be enacted on a mostly-bare stage in front of a noisy crowd of Joe Q. Publics, not enacted in an elaborate hushed stage setting in front of a group of phychologist, phychoanalists, etc. I have often felt that some critics see deep, mystical, dark meanings in Shakespeare that he never intended (I feel it is more a reflection of the critic's own phyche). Not to say that Shakespeare is shallow! I feel his "well-written" plays are awesome and unmatched by anyone, anywhere, anytime. Van Doren brings Shakepeare to the light of day in a clear, logical, yet so very elegant way. This book literally brings me to tears, it's so beautiful!

Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man

Average customer rating:

The author is not qualified for this job
A Genuine Classic That Never Should Have Left Print
Insights into the world of academia
Fascinating but . . .
clear, comprehensive, & mostly convincing--unlike De Man

Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man
David Lehman
Manufacturer: Poseidon Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Responses: On Paul de Man's Wartime Journalism

ASIN: 0671775944

Customer Reviews:

The author is not qualified for this job.......2006-03-03

Lehman is a decent historian of modern poetry, but he is completely out of his depth with the philosophical and theoretical questions raised by deconstruction and other forms of post-structuralism. Far from, as other reviewers imply, offering an impressive defence of objectivity, he actually fails to grasp what the issues are. Robust common sense has its place in everyday life, but is a crude tool with which to tackle technical philosophical problems with which subtle - and qualified - thinkers have been wrestling for centuries.

The supposed scandal about Paul de Man is merely seasoning. Before getting excited about connections between his youthful political errors and his mature theoretical work, it's worth remembering that scientists, logicians, analytical philosophers, professors of law, theologians - and indeed butchers and bakers - have been bedfellows of anti-semitism and fascism. It takes a special kind of ignorance, or prejudice, to suppose that it is a specialty of deconstructionists.

A Genuine Classic That Never Should Have Left Print.......2005-10-21

"Signs of the Times" is one of those very rare books that can actually change your life by altering your consciousness about perception and reality. It's a fascinating, riveting and funny account of how Yale University deconstruction guru Paul De Man was exposed after his death as an anti-Semite and Nazi collaborator in Belgium during World War II. It does something unusual and extremely valuable: it turns the tables on the professional cynics of academic theory, by subjecting them to the same rigorous skepticism that they assume they alone are worthy to wield. Lehman's wonderful defense of objectivity, historical truth, and ideological non-dogmatism is one of the most entertaining, exhilarating books I've ever read. After reading it I would never again take at face value the relativistic blitherings of university "experts." Lehman's book does something wonderful: it assumes that a common, decently educated reader and citizen can come to know truths about life. What a fabulous, unique concept for contemporary intellectual life!

Insights into the world of academia.......2003-12-29

This is the story of an intellectual movement built on a foundation of sand. Deconstructionism is yet another literary movement that accompanied the rise of feminist, ethnic, Marxist and liberation literature, movements that swept the academic world. It is dangerous in its implications and startling in its conclusions. Its founder, Paul de Man, taught literature at Yale.

He hid a dirty secret for forty years: He assisted the Nazis in their occupation of France. In deconstructionist fashion, the response to this news was that the Jews themselves were to blame and he was the victim. Deconstructionists claim that the subject cannot be defined - it is a theory or method or even structure. But among gthe disturbing elements are: History is bunk (so we can't believe or learn anything), words control us (not the other way around), the critic is of more importance than the subject, absence is presence and most importantly, language, not knowledge, is true power.

The term itself derives from a call for the destruction of ontolgy, the study of the nature of being. A close look at the advocates of deconstructionism reveals a fascist undertone throughout. Not only was de Man a one-time supporter but so was Vladimir Sokolov (Yale), Heidegger (Germany), Blanchot (France) and Man's number one disciple, Jacque Derrida, the Algerian Frenchman. Derrida has defended de Man (as well as the others) arguing, in deconstructionist terms, that everything is theory yet nothing can be defined - even terms like good and bad. The fact that this group identified with the far Left is indicative of the totalitarian nature of both movements.

The description of the politicalization of academia should be required reading for every tax payer or parent of a prospective college student. This is an important, well-written brilliant study of a tragic event in our nation's history. It should serve as a warning.

Fascinating but . . ........2001-04-14

The most fascinating part of the De Man saga is the fact that he lived a lie for roughly forty years, like some sort of film noir of a lie lived in plain sight. Everything he wrote after the war can only be seen in the light of the fact, not only that he was a collaborator, but that he must have known that his past would eventually turn up, and that everything he wrote about guilt and truth and language would eventually be read in that light. His nihilism was in a sense one long exculpation. And why was he never fingered during his life? Was there no other Belgian refugee who said, "Wait a minute, I remember this guy from Le soir vole!" How could a highly visible collaborator survive a very public career in the US without even changing his name? The only way to explain it is by saying that he was Belgian and wrote in Flemish, but even that doesn't explain it. And if he was such a cad, how come none of his Belgian friends--or even his wife, who he deserted--ratted him out? Strangely, Lehman never even mentions that, as if the question never occurs to him. De Man's writing is magisterial and affectless, and it is not hard to understand why his students admired him so greatly. His story reminds me a great deal of that of Leo Strauss, another refugee who came to the US (under very different circumstances) and also founded a sect on the basis of a method of reading, deconstruction in the one case and esotericism in the other.

clear, comprehensive, & mostly convincing--unlike De Man.......1999-01-21

Why is this book out of print? It should be taught in universities as a classic work on 20th century literary criticism and "theory". Its take on the posthumous Paul De Man scandal is clear, comprehensive, and mostly convincing. De Man, a dead deconstrutionist, was revealed to have been a cad in his public and private lives. Lehman demonstrates how the equivoque and equivoation that are central to deconstrutionism allowed De Man to rationalize his past as a Nazi collaborator, as a liar to USA immigration and to influential American intellectuals in the 1950s, and as a shuffler off of responsibilities to his first wife and family, all as mere textual details that didn't need addressing in his later career as a very respected American literary critic and academic. I disliked De Man's mandarin literary criticism even before I knew he was involved in deconstructionism--I thought his insistence on universal textual equivocation, universal lack of definitive textual commitment, and universal textual self-referentiality was part of the conservative, literature-has-no-social-bearing school of literary criticism which dominated the academy in the 1950s, and remained vital though not unchallenged there in the 1960s and early 70s. I dock Lehman's book one star for his too indiscriminately lumping De Man and deconstrutionism with other, more socially involved movements in academic thought that Lehmann also happens to dislike.

The Best American Poetry 2002 (Best American Poetry)

Average customer rating:

Never mind the bollocks, buy this book!
Unfortunately
By far the worst of the series
An Unsurprising Disappointment
People can get so hostile

The Best American Poetry 2002 (Best American Poetry)

Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Anthologies | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

The Best American Poetry 2004
The Best American Poetry 2003
The Best American Poetry 2000 (Best American Poetry)
The Best American Poetry 2001 (Best American Poetry)
The Best American Poetry 2005 (Best American Poetry)

ASIN: 0743203852

Book Description

Since its inception in 1988, The Best American Poetry series has achieved brand-name status in the literary world as the preeminent showcase of each year's most important contributions to American poetry. Arriving at a time when, as series editor David Lehman writes in his foreword, "the hunger for poetry and the need for elegy" is great, this year's volume demonstrates poetry's astonishing vitality, its ability to move and inspire us in a way no other medium can.

As do the previous volumes in this esteemed series, The Best American Poetry 2002 spotlights the work of today's most innovative and talented poets. The pleasure of the poems selected here, editor Robert Creeley explains in his introduction, is "that they caught my fancy, some almost outrageously, some by their quiet, nearly diffident manner, some by unexpected turns of thought or insight, others by a confident authority and intent." Reflecting Creeley's standing as a figure revered across the wide spectrum of American poetry, this exceptional anthology features a diverse mix of established masters such as Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, and Charles Wright; rising stars like Anne Carson, Carl Phillips, and Rae Armantrout; and the leading lights of a younger generation, such as Anselm Berrigan, Jenny Boully, and Maggie Nelson.

With comments from the poets elucidating their work, a thought-provoking introduction from Creeley, and Lehman's always popular foreword assessing the current state of poetry, The Best American Poetry 2002 will prove as irresistible to new readers as it is indispensable for poetry fans everywhere.

Customer Reviews:

Never mind the bollocks, buy this book!.......2006-06-08

For many years, I have been taking the Best American Poetry books down from the shelf at the local bookstore for a peek, but I never felt compelled to buy one until I read the 2002 version selected by Robert Creeley. I've always had more respect than affection for Creeley, finding it hard to get into his stuff, but I loved the synergy (Marketing stole this word from the Greeks--I'm stealing it back) produced by the juxtaposition of devil-may-care experimentation with the best of more traditional, "mainstream" offerings in this volume. My favorite examples of these divergent impulses here are Jenny Boully's "The Body," a poem in the form of footnotes to blank pages (this poem has been ridiculed in other reviews found here, but I find it daring and exhilirating--in fact, I wish I had thought of it first) and Donald Hall's "Affirmation," an astonishingly straightforward and devastating poem that is one of my favorites from his body of work and one that should warm (freeze?) the heart of the most esthetically conservative reader.

Even though I received a B.A. in English with a focus on creative writing ten years ago, I have only recently begun to understand the struggle between those who would keep poetry at a place it never was (the "School of Quietude" in Ron Silliman's terms--you MUST read his blog, it's good whether you agree or not, just as long as you care about poetry) and those who want poetry to continue to evolve (not "improve"), no matter what unexpected and scary turns it may take (what Mr Silliman calls, in our time, the "post-avant"). This book seems to have frightened most of the reviewers who felt compelled to contribute their opinions here, which frightened state they express as distaste. Just know that the most innovative and forward poetry that has lasted was seen in its time as "eccentric" or "inaccessible" or "repugnant" or "unreadable" or "incomprehensible," ad nauseam, from Euripides to T.S. Eliot, who, despite of his conversion to stultifying artistic conservatism and his weird adoption by "the Establishment" (and weirder disinheritance by "the anti-Establishment"), told us, if I remember correctly, that meaning should not be sought when first reading poetry that is new to us, but rather an understanding of the qualities of language the poet is presenting to us.

[This may be a complete misrepresentation of Eliot; I'm sorry I don't remember where I read his statement about reading for meaning. Anyway, people who hate this book will respond that there is no quality to the language here, the good old days were the best, blah blah blah etc etc, but this is as good a place as any to end this review.]

Unfortunately.......2006-05-29

Few of the poems in this collection struck fire in me, a smaller percentage than earlier volumes in the series.

By far the worst of the series.......2004-06-17

I have never been a fan of Creeley's work ("For Love" is honestly one of the worst poetry books I ever wasted a yard sale dollar on), but I still expected better from his BAP selections, which are totally lacking in flavor. Creeley tries to convert readers to his surrealist style, rife with inaccessible, abstract dream-language, most of which here is narcissistic, utterly incoherent, and reads like the journal ramblings of a Goth teenager. Someone who does not like poetry would not change his/her mind after reading BAP 2002, and that is exactly why I find this collection repugnant. As a poet myself, I have an open mind, experiment with nontraditional modes of writing, and enjoy the surrealist and renegade edge of many contemporary writers. But this edition was useless, both as enjoyable reading and as writing inspiration. 90% of the poems are meaningless, flat, and unfulfilling. Additionally, they were culled almost exclusively from the internet and unheard-of publications. I strongly support small presses and am always eager to sample new publications, but to ignore more established journals which consistently produce quality work feels disrespectful somehow. To be fair, there are a few bright spots in this edition--the poems by Broughton, Burkard, Chapman, Cooley, di Prima, Equi, Friedlander, Gizzi, Goldbarth, Hall, Kumin, Merwin, Myles, Metres, Olds, Sadoff, Warsh, Wier and Wright are worth a second read. But an anthology such as this shouldn't be assessed on the quality of each individual poem, rather on the tone and texture of the whole. The "picture" that BAP 2002 paints is a painful, wasteful, headache-inducing one. Creeley himself says in the introduction, "These poems are better than the best, each and every one of them. If you don't agree, then go find your own." Please, please take his advice.

An Unsurprising Disappointment.......2004-01-03

Reader take note: if you are curious about contemporary poetry and are looking for an interesting place to start, this anthology is not for you. Try 2001 or 2003. Skip 2002. One of the interesting things about this series is discovering the guest editor, always a notable contemporary poet, as reader of contemporary poetry. What exactly was Robert Creeley thinking? Most of the poems in this volume are emminently forgettable; others unreadable. I enjoy reading this anthology every year, but in this case it was a real struggle.

People can get so hostile.......2003-11-21

Maybe too many aspiring poets hold inclusion in "The Best American Poetry" as being the pinnacle of having "arrived." This reasoning makes for a lot of frustrated poets, who feel as if their work is more deserving, which in turn makes for negative reviews. There are a lot of talented writers in this volume, writers whose work might have been overlooked or lost on readers, because so many poets don't turn to literary journals--they turn to this anthology to see who's who. I'm sure that younger poets (and very talented poets) such as Sarah Manguso and Jenny Boully benefited from this anthology because their work suddenly found hundreds of new readers. Of course, there is also bad, very bad poetry in this collection. However, I'm willing to take the good with the bad if it means having a yearly summary of the current poetry scene.

Average customer rating:

First-Rate Literary Reportage

Signs Of The Times - Deconstruction And The Fall Of Paul De Man
David Lehman
Manufacturer: Poseidon Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Customer Reviews:

First-Rate Literary Reportage.......2007-04-30

In a first-rate piece of literary reportage, David Lehman chronicles the movement known as "deconstructionism" within the larger movement in the humanities known as "critical theory." With more empathy for his subjects than this reviewer can muster, Lehman shows how hubris, greed, parochialism, and elitism led to an "emperor's new clothes" community in which a former Nazi collaborator could become idolized by a generation of impressionable academic lefties.
A must-have addition to all prospective academics who want to retain...if not their souls, may we at least say their individual identities?

A. R. Ammons: Selected Poems (American Poets Project)

Average customer rating:

A comprehensive selection

A. R. Ammons: Selected Poems (American Poets Project)
A. R. Ammons
Manufacturer: Library of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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Edith Wharton: Selected Poems (American Poets Project)

ASIN: 1931082936

Book Description

Meditative, comic, emotionally wrenching, steeped in both the natural world and the life of the mind, the poetry of A. R. Ammons is at once cosmic in scope and intimate in its moment-to-moment transformations. With his mastery of description and cadence, his roiling wit and fearless gaze, Ammons was a philosopher of the everyday who found surprise everywhere he looked. "He is often witty, sometimes bawdy," writes editor David Lehman, "on a perpetual quest to find forms capacious enough for an imagination intent on finding a place for everything."

A compound, in editor David Lehman's words, of "wisdom, pathos, humor, mortal longing, and intimations of immortality," the work of A. R. Ammons is like nothing else in modern American poetry. Ammons's tireless formal invention and restless curiosity about every aspect of nature and of the mind are embodied in poetry that is effortlessly accessible and generous in its impulses. Whether spreading out in the long forms of Tape for the Turn of the Year or Garbage, or honing his perceptions down to the extreme brevity of his shorter lyrics, he holds tight to his vision of the way "all day / life itself is bending, / weaving, changing, / adapting, failing, / succeeding."

This new selection covering the whole range of Ammons's career offers a superb introduction to the pleasures and surprises of his work. His uncanny ability to balance wide-ranging abstract speculation with meticulous observation of natural phenomena, in poetry that encompasses moods of tragic pathos, low comedy, and seemingly casual profundity marks him as one of the preeminent figures in our recent literature

Customer Reviews:

A comprehensive selection.......2006-04-07

So far this is the most comprehensive selection of work from Ammons's prolific career: Lehman balances his choices among the early, middle, and late phases. Most of the poems are fairly short (don't look for "Essay on Poetics" or the like), but there are some self-contained passages from the major book-length poems (_Tape for the Turn of the Year_, _Sphere_, _Garbage_, and _Glare_). Especially welcome are several late poems that appeared in high-profile magazines but had yet to be collected at the time of Ammons's death--and the very last poem is an unpublished one found in manuscript.

The selection could have been larger: the book is only 130 pp, whereas the simultaneously-published LOA selection of Zukofksy's poems is 172 pp. It's unfortunate that "The City Limits" and the selections from _Sphere_ were printed with wrap-around lines. It's also too bad that the excerpts from _Garbage_ and _Glare_ make no reference to those poems' section numbers. However, for now this is certainly the best single introduction to Ammons's poetry.

Authors:

Authors

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