Poetry as Persuasion (The Life of Poetry: Poets on Their Art and Craft) - Softcover

Dennis, Carl

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0820322482 ISBN 13: 9780820322483

Publisher: University of Georgia Press, 2001

Synopsis

Focusing on the relation of the poet to the reader, Carl Dennis proposes that poems are acts of persuasion and that the strength of a poem's speaker is the key to winning the reader's sympathetic attention. Dennis identifies the qualities of passion, discrimination, and inclusiveness as essential in creating a compelling speaker. This emphasis on character leads to fresh discussions of point of view, irony, myth, and genre. Each subject is developed through careful readings of a wide variety of poets―from Whitman and Dickinson to contemporaries. Lucidly written, Poetry as Persuasion offers both inspiration and important advice for practicing poets, and at the same time provides anyone with an interest in poetry a fresh understanding of its appeal.

About this title

About the Author

CARL DENNIS is the author of seven books of poetry, including, most recently, Practical Gods, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, in 2000 he was awarded the Ruth Lilly Prize from Poetry Magazine and the Modern Poetry Association for his contribution to American poetry. He is a professor of English at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a sometime member of the faculty of the MFA program in creative writing at Warren Wilson College.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0820322482
• ISBN 13: 9780820322483
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216