The Poet's Notebook: Excerpts from the Notebooks of 26 American Poets - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393316556 ISBN 13: 9780393316551

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997

Synopsis

"This wonderfully instructive collection of journal writings, notebooks, jottings . . . , workbook fragments leads us into the corners of the mind where poetry hides."―Miami Herald

The Poet's Notebook brings together excerpts from the working notebooks of twenty-six American poets. Unsystematic, spontaneous, irreverent, intense, witty, unexpected, these notebooks shimmer with reflections, speculations, confessions, quotations, impressions, and ruminations. They create a portrait of the artist as a purposeful gatherer and sifter of every kind of experience.

Included are the notebooks from such distinguished and eclectic voices as Rita Dove, Stephen Dunn, Carolyn Forché, Donald Hall, Garrett Hongo, Joy Harjo, Donald Justice, Yusef Komunyakaa, James Merrill, Mary Oliver, Charles Simic, and William Stafford.

About this title

Review

In The Poet's Notebook readers are privy to memories, dreams, reflections, poems, and overheard conversations as recorded in the notebooks of 26 contemporary American poets who subscribe to Somerset Maugham's belief that "the mere habit of notebook keeping might make the writer more observant." Donald Hall compares writing (favorably, it lasts longer) to orgasm. William Matthews ponders a Dylan bootleg, envying the musician his ability "to turn one's work inside out, mock it, vamp it, make it both new and continuous with its former versions" (a published poem is, well, published). Liz Rosenberg likens a poem to a baby, because both are "self-absorbed and containing ... the universal breath, and needing constant tiny cares and adjustments." And Lisel Mueller invokes Yehuda Amichai's demand that "every poem should be the last poem, written as if it contained the last thing the poet would ever say, shaped to contain a condensation of all the messages of his or her life." Whew. If you keep your own "compost heap," as poet Rosanna Warren calls her poet's notebook, pick up a spare; yours will surely be filled by book's end.

About the Author

Stephen Kuusisto is the author of Only Bread, Only Light (poems) and Planet of the Blind. He is professor of English and disability studies at Ohio State University and lives in Columbus, Ohio.

Deborah Tall and David Weiss teach at Hobart and William Smith colleges and live in Ithaca, New York.

Deborah Tall and David Weiss teach at Hobart and William Smith colleges and live in Ithaca, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0393316556
• ISBN 13: 9780393316551
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 322
• Editor: Kuusisto Stephen, Tall Deborah, Weiss David