The Best of the Prose Poem

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Best of the Prose Poem THE BEST OF THE PROSE POEM: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Contributors © Providence College The author(s) permits users to copy, distribute, display, and perform this work under the following conditions: (1) the original author(s) must be given proper attribution; (2) this work may not be used for commercial purposes; (3) the users may not alter, transform, or build upon this work; (4) users must make the license terms of this work clearly known for any reuse or distribution of this work. Upon request, as holder of this work’s copyright, the author(s) may waive any or all of these conditions. The Prose Poem: An International Journal is produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress) for the Providence College Digital Commons. http://digitalcommons.providence.edu/prosepoems/ CONTRIBUTORS Kim Addonizio is the author of three books of poetry, the most recent of which is Tell Me (BOA Editions); her book of stories, In the Box Called Pleasure, was recently published by Fiction Collective 2. Robert Alexander is the author of a book of prose poems, White Pine Sucker River: Poems 1970-1990, and he has co-edited two anthologies, The Party Train: A Collection of North American Prose Poetry and The Talking Hands: A Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration. All three books are available from New Rivers Press. He is currently working on a narrative prose poem about the Civil War battle of Five Forks. Agha Shahid Ali is Director of the M.F.A. Creative Writing Program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. His latest collections are A Nostalgisfs Map of America and The Country Without a Post Office. Jack Anderson, a poet and dance critic, received the Marie Alexander Award for his Traffic: New and Selected Prose Poems (New Rivers Press). Nin Andrews is the author of The Book of Orgasms and Spontaneous Breasts. Rane Arroyo is a Puerto Rican poet and playwright who is widely published and performed. He is the son of Jean Genet and Emily Dickinson-with Pablo Neruda as the Holy Ghost. Rose Auslander was born in what is now Romania and wrote in German. Of Jewish origin, she survived WWII and immigrated to the United States in 1946, where she worked for the next seventeen years as a secretary, correspondent and translator. She returned to Europe in 1963, and died in Diisseldorf, Germany in 1988. Her first volume of poetry was published in 1939; her second in 1965. These translations are reprinted by permission of S. Fischer Verlag and Gary Sea. Copyright © 1984 S. Fischer Verlag GmbHm Frankfurt an Main. Ruth Behar's poems are included in three new anthologies: Sephardic American Voices: Two Hundred Years of a Literary Legacy (Brandeis University Press, 1996); Little Havana Blues: A Cuban-American Literature Anthology (Arte Publico Press, 1996); and The Prairie Schooner Anthology of Jewish-American Writers, edited by Hilda Raz (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998). The poem included in this volume forms part of a manuscript entitled Nameless Poems/Poemas sin nombre, which explores the themes of love, loss, and regret, as well as Behar's search for bonds to Cuba, her place of birth. Michael Benedikt has published five books of poetry, including Mole Notes, Night Cries, and The Badminton at Great Barrington. He also edited the Poetry of Surrealism and The Prose Poem: An International Anthology. His new manuscript of prose poems is called Universe. Aloysius Bertrand (1807-1841) has sometimes been called "The Father of the Modern Prose Poem," though he never used the term to describe his own work. The poem in this volume is from The Fantasies of Gaspard de la Nuit, a book Baudelaire cited as the precursor to his Paris Spleen. Robert Bly's latest books of poetry include Eating the Honey of Words: New and Selected Poems (Harper Collins) and The Lightning Should Have Fallen on Ghalib: Selected Poems of Ghalib, Ecco Press, translated with Sunil Dutta. He also edited The Best American Poetry 1999 (Scribner). Michael Bowden lives in Sierra Vista, Arizona. His prose poems have appeared sporadically in various journals over the years, and have been included in two anthologies: Fever Dreams: Contemporary Arizona Poetry and The Party Train: A Collection of North American Prose Poetry. John Bradley lives with his wife, Jana, in DeKalb, where he teaches writing at Northern Illinois University. An essay of his on the prose poem appeared in Quarter After Eight. Joel Brouwer, a 1999-2000 NEA fellow, is the author of Exactly What Happened (Purdue, 1999). "Tumor" and "Marked" are from a manuscript of 100-word prose poems, Centuries, which is currently seeking a publisher. Christopher Buckley's ninth book of poetry, Fall From Grace, was recently published by BkMk Press/University of Missouri, Kansas City. With Gary Young he has just edited The Geography of Home: California and the Poetry of Place (Hey Day Books, 1999). He is Chair of the Creative Writing Dept. at the University of California/Riverside. Lynne Burris Butler won the 1999 Blue Lynx Poetry Prize for her collection of poems Sunday Afternoons with Tolstoy. She teaches at the University of North Alabama. George Chambers, novelist and poet, teaches at Bradley University. He is the author of The Bonnyclabber (novel), Null Set (short stories), and The Last Man Standing (novel). According to Ray Federman, he and Chambers "have been writing together—sending the stuff back and forth, until we feel it's in place. I think we are on to something—a series of sorts." Maxine Chernoff has published five books of poems and five collections of fiction, most recently her novel, A Boy in Winter (Crown). Michael Chitwood is the author of three collections of poetry: Salt Works, Whet and The Weave Room. He also has a book of essays titled Hitting Below the Bible Belt. David Citino is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Ohio State University. He is the author of ten books of poetry, including The Book of Appassionata: Collected Poems (Ohio State University Press); also Broken Symmetry (Ohio State), named a Notable Book of 1997 by the National Book Critics Circle; The Weight of the Heart (Quarterly Review of Literature Poetry Series, 1996); The Discipline: New and Selected Poems, 1980-1992 (Ohio State); The Appassionata Doctrines (Cleveland State University Poetry Center); and The Gift of Fire (University of Arkansas Press). Killarney Clary is the author of two collections of poetry: Who Whispered Near Me (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989) and By Common Salt (Oberlin College Press, 1993). She was a 1992 Lannan Foundation Fellowship recipient. Mark Cunningham received an MFA in creative writing from the University of Virginia a few years ago. He's stayed in the area because it's close to Washington D.C., where most museums don't charge to get in. Craig Czury's most recent books are Unreconciled Faces (Foot Hills Publishing, 1999) and Parallel Rivertime (bilingual Russian/English edition Petropol Press, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1999). He lives in Reading, Pennsylvania where he conducts his ongoing Berks Poetry Project with the African-American, Hispanic, Asian and Anglo communities. Philip Dacey's latest books are The Deathbed Playboy (Eastern Washington University Press, 1999) and The Paramour of the Moving Air (Quarterly Review of Literature, 1999). Jon Davis's latest book is Scrimmage of Appetite (University of Akron Press, 1995). Aleš Debeljak's recent books in English include Reluctant Modernity: Institution of Art and its Historical Forms and The City and the Child. He lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Michel Delville teaches twentieth-century British and American literature at the University of Liege, Belgium. His published works include a study of J. G. Ballard (Northcote House, 1998) and articles on contemporary poetry and fiction. His book, The American Prose Poem: Poetic Form and the Boundaries of Genre (University Press of Florida, 1998), won the 1998 SAMLA Studies Award. Miriam Goodman's Expense Report won the 1995 Warm Springs Press Chap-book competition and appeared in summer 1995. Her newest collection, Commercial Traveller, was published in 1996 by Garden Street Press. She teaches a class in word and image at the Radcliffe Seminars and makes her living as a digital instructional designer. David Greenslade lives in Wales where he publishes in Welsh and English. English language books include Welsh Fever, a look at Welsh immigrant life in the U.S.A. Prose poetry collections include Cambrian Country, a study of Welsh Emblems, and Creosote, an investigation of the vegetable soul. Richard Gwyn's most recent book is a collection of forty-two prose poems, Walking on Bones (Parthian Books). After several years living in Greece and Spain he now lives in Cardiff where he works as a lecturer and researcher in health communication. Leo Haber, adjunct professor of Hebrew at Union College, N.Y., and consulting editor at Midstream, has published poetry and fiction in a wide variety of journals including Commentary, Midstream, The Literary Review, River City, Southern Poetry Review, Snake Nation Review, Voices West, and The Prose Poem: An International Journal. Mr. Haber has won awards in poetry from Embers, Poetpourri, Rome Art and Community Center, and the Poetry Society of Dallas, Texas. Two of his poems appeared in an international anthology of Holocaust poetry, Beyond Lament, edited by Marguerite M. Striar and published by Northwestern University Press in 1998. S.C. Hahn lives on a farm near Falköping in southern Sweden, where he is milking cows, translating Swedish and German poetry, and writing a novel about the Nebraska Territory. Cecil Helman was born in 1944 in Cape Town, South Africa, but now resides in London. He previously published in journals and anthologies, including, The Prose Poem: An International Anthology (ed.
Recommended publications
  • Introducing Ten Extraordinary Writers Asking the Questions That Will Shape Our Future Owen Sheers Offers You a Guide to Contemporary British Writing
    Introducing ten extraordinary writers asking the questions that will shape our future Owen Sheers offers you a guide to contemporary British writing Ideas for your next festival, reading programme, or inspiration for your students Contents Your guide to contemporary British 1nta writing... 3 Owen Sheers introduces his selection 4cts Raymond Antrobus 5 Laura Bates 6 Elizabeth-Jane Burnett 7 Garrett Carr 8 Alys Conran 9 Nikita Lalwani 10 Hannah Lavery 11 Martin MacInnes 12 Clare Pollard 13 Adam Weymouth 14 Chitra Ramaswamy on Owen Sheers’ 15 selection Reception 17 Elif Shafak’s selection of 10 exciting women 18 writers Val McDermid’s selection of 10 compelling 19 LGBTQI+ writers Jackie Kay’s selection of 10 compelling BAME 20 writers Coming soon 21 The International Literature Showcase is a partnership between the National Centre for Writing and the British Council, with support from Arts Council England and Creative Scotland. Your guide to contemporary British writing... Looking to book inspiring writers for your next festival? Want to introduce your students to exciting new writing from the UK? The International Literature Showcase is a partnership between the National Centre for Writing and the British Council. It aims to showcase amazing writers based in the UK to programmers, publishers and teachers of literature in English around the world. To do so, we have invited five leading writers to each curate a showcase of themed writing coming out of the UK today. Following the high-profile launches of Elif Shafak’s showcase of women writers at London Book Fair 2019, Val McDermid’s showcase of LGBTQI+ writers at the National Library of Scotland, and Jackie Kay’s showcase of BAME writers at Cheltenham Literature Festival 2019, we have now revealed Owen Sheers’ selection of writers asking questions that will shape our future.
    [Show full text]
  • Wales Sees Too Much Through Scottish Eyes
    the welsh + Peter Stead Dylan at 100 Richard Wyn Jones and Roger Scully Do we need another referendum? John Osmond Learning from Mondragon Stuart Cole A railway co-op for Wales David Williams Sliding into poverty James Stewart A lost broadcasting service Peter Finch Wales sees too Talking to India Trevor Fishlock The virtues of left handednesss much through Osi Rhys Osmond Two lives in art Ned Thomas Scottish eyes Interconnected European stories M. Wynne Thomas The best sort of crank www.iwa.org.uk | Summer 2012 | No. 47 | £8.99 The Institute of Welsh Affairs gratefully acknowledges funding support from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Waterloo Foundation. The following organisations are corporate members: Public Sector Private Sector Voluntary Sector • Aberystwyth University • ABACA Limited • Aberdare & District Chamber • ACAS Wales • ACCA Cymru Wales of Trade & Commerce • Bangor University • Beaufort Research Ltd • Cardiff & Co • BBC Cymru Wales • BT • Cartrefi Cymru • British Waterways • Call of the Wild • Cartrefi Cymunedol Community • Cardiff & Vale College / Coleg • Castell Howell Foods Housing Cymru Caerdydd a’r Fro • CBI Wales • Community – the Union for Life • Cardiff Council • Core • Cynon Taf Community Housing Group • Cardiff School of Management • Darwin Gray • Disability Wales • Cardiff University • D S Smith Recycling • EVAD Trust • Cardiff University Library • Devine Personalised Gifts • Federation of Small Businesses Wales • Centre for Regeneration Excellence • Elan Valley Trust
    [Show full text]
  • Classical Persian Literature Bahman Solati (Ph.D), 2015 University of California, Berkeley [email protected]
    Classical Persian Literature Bahman Solati (Ph.D), 2015 University of California, Berkeley [email protected] Introduction Studying the roots of a particular literary history enables us to better understand the allusions the literature transmits and why we appreciate them. It also allows us to foresee how the literature may progress.1 I will try to keep this attitude in the reader’s mind in offering this brief summary of medieval Persian literature, a formidable task considering the variety and wealth of the texts and documentation on the subject.2 In this study we will pay special attention to the development of the Persian literature over the last millennia, focusing in particular on the initial development and background of various literary genres in Persian. Although the concept of literary genres is rather subjective and unstable,3 reviewing them is nonetheless a useful approach for a synopsis, facilitating greater understanding, deeper argumentation, and further speculation than would a simple listing of dates, titles, and basic biographical facts of the giants of Persian literature. Also key to literary examination is diachronicity, or the outlining of literary development through successive generations and periods. Thriving Persian literature, undoubtedly shaped by historic events, lends itself to this approach: one can observe vast differences between the Persian literature of the tenth century and that of the eleventh or the twelfth, and so on.4 The fourteenth century stands as a bridge between the previous and the later periods, the Mongol and Timurid, followed by the Ṣafavids in Persia and the Mughals in India. Given the importance of local courts and their support of poets and writers, it is quite understandable that literature would be significantly influenced by schools of thought in different provinces of the Persian world.5 In this essay, I use the word literature to refer to the written word adeptly and artistically created.
    [Show full text]
  • Torrey Peters Has Written the Trans Novel Your Book Club Needs to Read Now P.14
    Featuring 329 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children'sand YA books KIRKUSVOL. LXXXIX, NO. 1 | 1 JANUARY 2021 REVIEWS Torrey Peters has written the trans novel your book club needs to read now p.14 Also in the issue: Lindsay & Lexie Kite, Jeff Mack, Ilyasah Shabazz & Tiffany D. Jackson from the editor’s desk: New Year’s Reading Resolutions Chairman BY TOM BEER HERBERT SIMON President & Publisher MARC WINKELMAN John Paraskevas As a new year begins, many people commit to strict diets or exercise regimes # Chief Executive Officer or vow to save more money. Book nerd that I am, I like to formulate a series MEG LABORDE KUEHN of “reading resolutions”—goals to help me refocus and improve my reading [email protected] Editor-in-Chief experience in the months to come. TOM BEER Sometimes I don’t accomplish all that I hoped—I really ought to have [email protected] Vice President of Marketing read more literature in translation last year, though I’m glad to have encoun- SARAH KALINA [email protected] tered Elena Ferrante’s The Lying Life of Adults (translated by Ann Goldstein) Managing/Nonfiction Editor and Juan Pablo Villalobos’ I Don’t Expect Anyone To Believe Me (translated by ERIC LIEBETRAU Daniel Hahn)—but that isn’t exactly the point. [email protected] Fiction Editor Sometimes, too, new resolutions form over the course of the year. Like LAURIE MUCHNICK many Americans, I sought out more work by Black writers in 2020; as a result, [email protected] Tom Beer Young Readers’ Editor books by Claudia Rankine, Les and Tamara Payne, Raven Leilani, Deesha VICKY SMITH [email protected] Philyaw, and Randall Kenan were among my favorites of the year.
    [Show full text]
  • 2019 27Th Annual Poets House Showcase Exhibition Catalog
    2019 27th Annual Poets House Showcase Exhibition Catalog Poets House | 10 River Terrace | New York, NY 10282 | poetshouse.org ELCOME to the 2019 Poets House Showcase, our annual, all-inclusive exhibition of the most recent poetry books, chapbooks, broadsides, artists’ books, and multimedia works published in the United States and W abroad. This year marks the 27th anniversary of the Poets House Showcase and features over 3,300 books from more than 800 different presses and publishers. For 27 years, the Showcase has helped to keep our collection current and relevant, building one of the most extensive collections of poetry in our nation—an expansive record of the poetry of our time, freely available and open to all. Building the Exhibit and the Poets House Library Collection Every year, Poets House invites poets and publishers to participate in the annual Showcase by donating copies of poetry titles released since January of the previous year. This year’s exhibit highlights poetry titles published in 2018 and the first part of 2019. Books have been contributed by the entire poetry community, from the publishers who send on their titles as they’re released, to the poets who mail us signed copies of their newest books, to library visitors donating books when they visit us. Every newly published book is welcomed, appreciated, and featured in the Showcase. The Poets House Showcase is the mechanism through which we build our library: a comprehensive, inclusive collection of over 70,000 poetry works, all free and open to the public. To make it as extensive as possible, we reach out to as many poetry communities and producers as we can, bringing together poetic voices of all kinds to meet the different needs and interests of our many library patrons.
    [Show full text]
  • Celebrating the Best American Poetry 2018 at Villanova[3]
    Celebrating the Best American Poetry 2018 at Villanova February 6, 2019 5:00 Connelly Center Cinema 6:15 (St. David’s Room) Reception and Book Signing Villanova University is honored to host the regional launch of the thirtieth anniversary edition of The Best American Poetry, guest edited by Dana Gioia, David Lehman, general editor. For three decades, the Best American Poetry has served as an annual occasion to recognize new work by American authors; inclusion is one of the great honors established and emerging poets may receive. The anthology was officially launched at New York University, in September 2018, but Villanova now brings together six of the anthology’s authors, along with David Lehman, for an evening of reading, discussion, and fellowship on our campus. David Lehman will chair the event, which will feature short readings from six poets: Maryann Corbett, Ernest Hilbert, Mary Jo Salter, Adrienne Su, Ryan Wilson, and Villanova’s own James Matthew Wilson. The public is warmly invited to this special evening to celebrate the achievement of contemporary letters and to join us for food and conversation afterwards. This event is sponsored by the Honors Program, the Villanova Center for Liberal Education, the Department of English, and the Department of Humanities. For more information, contact James Matthew Wilson, at [email protected] About the poets Maryann Corbett was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in northern Virginia. She earned a BA from the College of William and Mary and an MA and PhD from the University of Minnesota. She has published three books of poetry: Breath Control (2012); Credo for the Checkout Line in Winter (2013), which was a finalist for the Able Muse Book Prize; and Mid Evil (2014), the winner of the Richard Wilbur Award.
    [Show full text]
  • Glossary of Literary Terms
    Glossary of Critical Terms for Prose Adapted from “LitWeb,” The Norton Introduction to Literature Study Space http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/litweb10/glossary/C.aspx Action Any event or series of events depicted in a literary work; an event may be verbal as well as physical, so that speaking or telling a story within the story may be an event. Allusion A brief, often implicit and indirect reference within a literary text to something outside the text, whether another text (e.g. the Bible, a myth, another literary work, a painting, or a piece of music) or any imaginary or historical person, place, or thing. Ambiguity When we are involved in interpretation—figuring out what different elements in a story “mean”—we are responding to a work’s ambiguity. This means that the work is open to several simultaneous interpretations. Language, especially when manipulated artistically, can communicate more than one meaning, encouraging our interpretations. Antagonist A character or a nonhuman force that opposes, or is in conflict with, the protagonist. Anticlimax An event or series of events usually at the end of a narrative that contrast with the tension building up before. Antihero A protagonist who is in one way or another the very opposite of a traditional hero. Instead of being courageous and determined, for instance, an antihero might be timid, hypersensitive, and indecisive to the point of paralysis. Antiheroes are especially common in modern literary works. Archetype A character, ritual, symbol, or plot pattern that recurs in the myth and literature of many cultures; examples include the scapegoat or trickster (character type), the rite of passage (ritual), and the quest or descent into the underworld (plot pattern).
    [Show full text]
  • The Anorexic Aesthetic: an Analysis of the Poetics of Glück, Dickinson
    The Anorexic Aesthetic: An Analysis of the Poetics of Glück, Dickinson, and Bidart Alexandra Haley Rigl Submitted to the Department of English, Vanderbilt University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Honors in the Major, April 11, 2014 Table of Contents Introduction.....................................................................................1 I. Louise Glück.....................................................................................................5 II. Emily Dickinson: The Ascetic Aesthetic as a Historical Analog of the Anorexic Aesthetic..........................................................................................................28 III. Frank Bidart: Enacting Anorexia in Persona ..................................................53 Conclusion.......................................................................................................69 Selected Bibliography.....................................................................................71 1 The Anorexic Aesthetic in Poetry “And so the poet may come to have a ‘vested interest’ in his handicaps; these handicaps may become an integral part of his method; and in so far as his style grows out of a disease, his loyalty to it may reinforce the disease.” Kenneth Burke Discussing the correlation between the mind and body, scholar Kenneth Burke identifies a peculiar yet profound imitation of life in art, specifically drawing a connection between artist and disease in such a way that suggests a nosological classification of a writer’s form
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Creative Expression in Writing (EGL 32 W)
    Creative Expression in Writing (EGL 32 W) - Preliminary Syllabus Instructor: Brittany Perham Term: Fall 2015 Required Materials 1. Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present, edited by David Lehman ISBN-13: 978-0743243506 Available at Powell’s Books here: GAPP Available at Amazon.com here: GAPP 2. Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction, edited by Judith Kitchen ISBN-13: 978-0393326000 Available at Powell’s Books here: Short Takes Available at Amazon.com here: Short Takes 3. Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories, edited by Robert Shepard & James Thomas ISBN-13: 978-0879052652 Available at Powell’s Books here: Sudden Fiction Available at Amazon.com here: Sudden Fiction 4. Online reading (posted online in the form of links) 5. Handouts (posted online in the form of .pdf files) The Online Community The fabulous thing about the Online Writers’ Studio is that it brings together like-minded people from all over the world. Together we will form a community of writers who will challenge and support each other. This is your class. Grading Most students enroll in this course under the non-graded (NGR) or the Credit/No Credit (i.e. pass/fail) options. If you would prefer to be graded, or if you must receive a letter grade to meet the requirements of your academic program, participation will serve as the basis of your grade. In order to receive an A, you must turn in all three pieces of writing for workshop, fulfill your responsibilities as workshop member, and participate thoughtfully in class discussion. If you complete less than 60% of the course work on time, you will receive an F.
    [Show full text]
  • Unit 1 Non-Fictional Prose: a Survey
    UNIT 1 NON-FICTIONAL PROSE: A SURVEY Structure I .O Objectives 1.1 Indian Prose Writers 1.2 Post-Independence Prose 1.3 Forms and Varieties of Prose 1.4 Let Us Sum Up 1.5 Suggested Reading 1.0 OBJECTIVES In this unit we shall trace the beginnings of Indian English Non-Fictional Prose. While surveying the field we will document important prose writers of the pre- independence era as also those who are currently writing. You will also be acquainted with the Forms and Varieties of Prose. After reading this unit you will appreciate the fact that whether fictional or non-fictional, prose should be read as closely as verse. 1.1 INDIAN PROSE WRITERS lndian English literature began as a by-product of the Indo-British encounter. Indians first started learning English for the purpose of trade and commerce. Expository+prose writing, letters, and speeches were the first to be published. The first Indian author in English, Dean Mahomet, published his memoirs, The Travels ofDean Mahomet, in 1794. There have been outstanding Indian orators like Vivekananda, Tilak and Srinivasa Sastri. Indians have published biographies, autobiographies, travelogues, and humorous sketches in addition to scholarly monographs in various fields of knowledge. Many of the contemporary novelists and poets have written good prose. But the achievements in poetry and fiction have drawn armtion away from non- fiction prose writings. Dean Mahomed ( 1759- 185 1) was born in 1759 into a fhmily claiming traditions of service to the Mughal Empire. After the death of his fbther, at the age of eleven, he .ioined the East India Company's Bengal Army as a camp follower, and attached h~mselfto an Ensign Godfrey Evan Baker.
    [Show full text]
  • A History of English Literature MICHAEL ALEXANDER
    A History of English Literature MICHAEL ALEXANDER [p. iv] © Michael Alexander 2000 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W 1 P 0LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2000 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 0-333-91397-3 hardcover ISBN 0-333-67226-7 paperback A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 O1 00 Typeset by Footnote Graphics, Warminster, Wilts Printed in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts [p. v] Contents Acknowledgements The harvest of literacy Preface Further reading Abbreviations 2 Middle English Literature: 1066-1500 Introduction The new writing Literary history Handwriting
    [Show full text]
  • School of Unlikeness: the Creative Writing Workshop and American Poetry
    School of Unlikeness: The Creative Writing Workshop and American Poetry Sarah Cohen A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2012 Reading Committee: Brian Reed, Chair Jeanne Heuving Jessica Burstein Program Authorized to Offer Degree: English University of Washington Abstract School of Unlikeness: American Poetry and the Creative Writing Workshop Sarah Cohen Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Associate Professor Brian Reed English This dissertation is a study of the creative writing workshop as a shaping institution of American poetry in the twentieth century. It takes as its starting point the observation that in the postwar period the rise of academic creative writing programs introduced profound material changes into the lives of American poets, as poetry became professionalized within the larger institution of the university. It goes on to argue that poets responded to these changes in ways that are directly legible in their work, producing a variety of poetic interrogations of the cultural and psychological effects of the reflexive professional self-fashioning that became, partially through the workshop, the condition of modern literary life. In other words, as poets became students and teachers, their classroom and career experiences occasioned new kinds of explorations of identity, performance, vocation, authority, and the cultural status of poets and poetry. The cluster of concerns linked to the evolving institution of "creative writing" shows stylistically diverse works to be united, and also resonates with and helps to clarify the major debates within the poetry world over the past decades between the camps of the "mainstream" and the "avant- garde" or, as Robert Lowell put it in 1959, "the cooked and the raw." My dissertation examines a variety of iterations of the relationship between workshop culture and poetic production through case studies of the poets Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Theodore Roethke, Richard Hugo, and Jorie Graham.
    [Show full text]