Heresy and the Ideal: On Contemporary PoetryHeresy and the Ideal is a powerful collection of essays and essay-reviews which David Baker wrote and published throughout the 1990s. He thoroughly discusses the work of more than fifty contemporary poets, including T. R. Hummer, Miller Williams, Albert Goldbarth, Jane Kenyon, Galway Kinnell, Charles Simic, Ted Kooser, David Wojahn, Alice Fulton, Louise Glück, and Charles Wright. He takes as his models some of the great critical books of the past three decades, especially Richard Howard's masterpiece, Alone with America, and Helen Vendler's Part of Nature, Part of Us, as well as other works by Laurence Lieberman, Majorie Perloff, Carol Muske, and Mary Kinzie. At its center, Heresy and the Ideal is based on Baker's sense of Romantic poetics, especially on how contemporary poets have applied, altered, or rejected certain Romantic principles. He uses the Romantic trope to measure the tension between passion and reason and between the problems of literary transcendence and the obligations of social engagement. The result is a welcome variety of enlightening, practical criticism devoid of exclusionary jargon and based on persistent attention to an individual poem or book of poems. Utilizing the essay-review, Baker considers each poet's purposes and achievements. He blends the strategies of explanation, analysis, and evaluation, clarifying each poet's work instead of complaining or condemning. Heresy and the Ideal addresses a wide and diverse range of contemporary poetry and should take a deserved place both as a critical introduction to the work of many important poets and as a work that documents and explores the shape of poetry at the end of the millennium. |
From inside the book
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Page i
On Contemporary Poetry David Baker. HERESY AND THE IDEAL This One 2FSC - DU9 - D2UH BOOKS BY DAVID BAKER POETRY The Truth about Small Towns.
On Contemporary Poetry David Baker. HERESY AND THE IDEAL This One 2FSC - DU9 - D2UH BOOKS BY DAVID BAKER POETRY The Truth about Small Towns.
Page ii
On Contemporary Poetry David Baker. BOOKS BY DAVID BAKER POETRY The Truth about Small Towns 1998 After the Reunion 1994 Sweet Home , Saturday Night 1991 Haunts 1985 Laws of the Land 1981 CRITICISM Heresy and the Ideal : On Contemporary ...
On Contemporary Poetry David Baker. BOOKS BY DAVID BAKER POETRY The Truth about Small Towns 1998 After the Reunion 1994 Sweet Home , Saturday Night 1991 Haunts 1985 Laws of the Land 1981 CRITICISM Heresy and the Ideal : On Contemporary ...
Page xiii
... books ? " was one question , and when we looked to the manager for direction , she made a sad face . " We don't carry David's books here , " she said . We all shared an embarrassed group laugh . " If the national buyer doesn't pick a book ...
... books ? " was one question , and when we looked to the manager for direction , she made a sad face . " We don't carry David's books here , " she said . We all shared an embarrassed group laugh . " If the national buyer doesn't pick a book ...
Page xiv
... books because my books weren't likely to sell enough copies to make it worth the shelf space . So that day no one found my books . I was there as a good - will publicity stunt , as corporate entertainment , like the New Age guitarist ...
... books because my books weren't likely to sell enough copies to make it worth the shelf space . So that day no one found my books . I was there as a good - will publicity stunt , as corporate entertainment , like the New Age guitarist ...
Page xvi
... book about contemporary poetry . Who may read this book , and why ? Where will they find it ? What do they desire to know ? I have wanted to make a few remarks about the context for poetry in the current reality , and about the contexts ...
... book about contemporary poetry . Who may read this book , and why ? Where will they find it ? What do they desire to know ? I have wanted to make a few remarks about the context for poetry in the current reality , and about the contexts ...
Contents
3 | |
On Albert Goldbarth Jane Kenyon LiYoung Lee | 61 |
The Push of Reading | 79 |
Framed in Words | 99 |
Smarts | 119 |
Plainness and Sufficiency | 149 |
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Common terms and phrases
A. R. Ammons aesthetic Albert Goldbarth Alice Fulton American Angelic Orders articulate becomes body Boland book of poems book's Charles Simic clarity connection contemporary Coulette critical cultural David Wojahn dead death deep image desire Diane di Prima dramatic Eavan Boland erasure erotic experience Falling Hour figure final formal Glück Goldbarth grace Hell Henri Coulette Heresy Hummer's ideal imagery imagination impulse Jorie Graham kind Kinnell Kooser's language lines literary lives loss Louise Glück lover lyric MacNeice means memory Merwin method mother mystery Naked poets narrative nature night Olds's Pankey passion past poem's poems poet's poetic poetry political provides rhetorical rhyme Romantic Romanticism seems sense Simic social song sonnet speaker spiritual stance stanzas story strategy syntax T. R. Hummer things tion transcendence transcendental trope turns vision voice Whitman Williams's Wojahn woman words Wright writes