Praises and Dispraises - Softcover

Des Pres, Terrence

4.29

7 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140127607 ISBN 13: 9780140127607

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1989

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Examines the role of poetry in an increasingly apoetic world, illuminating the work of Yeats, Brecht, Breytenbach, Adrienne Rich, and Thomas McGrath, and urges a poetic acknowledgement of the political world around us

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From Publishers Weekly:

For Des Pres the poem is a small act of healing that makes us aware of our condition and our optionsin that sense, all modern poetry is political. In this brilliant and illuminating study, completed shortly before his death in 1987, the author ( The Survivor: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps ) looks at five poets for whom politics looms large. Yeats, self-appointed Irish bard, and Brecht, exposer of Nazi evil, both believed in the poet's visionary power to transform the world. In the outspoken verses of Breyten Breytenbach, exiled South African poet, official versions of reality are dismantled. Thomas McGrath's Whitmanesque stanzas affirm that each of us lives a political as well as a private life, whether or not we acknowledge this dimension. Feminist oracle Adrienne Rich extends politics to encompass a fierce attention to relationships of all kinds. Des Pres's fresh readings are inspirational.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

In our nuclear age, should poetry confront or evade political issues? According to Des Pres, it is precisely poetry, with its life-sustaining power, that can save us from the crush of external events. Author of The Survivors: An Anatomy of Life in the Death Camps (1976), Des Pres locates that vital connection between poetry and action in the bardic tradition that allowed poets to summon their tribe, to curse and to praise, and finally to arouse to political revolt. He further demonstrates that the tradition continues in works by Yeats in Ireland, Brecht in Germany, Breytenbach in South Africa, and Adrienne Rich and Thomas McGrath in America. Recommended for both academic and public libraries. Lisa Mulleneaux, Iowa City
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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