Understanding Jorie Graham

The first comprehensive study of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Jorie Graham

Since her first book appeared in 1980, Jorie Graham has challenged readers with her bold, innovative, and capacious poetry. In the collections that followed, she expanded the scope of the lyric form through her maximalist poetics, her provocative ethical imagination, and, in later years, her environmentalist vision. Graham was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Dream of the Unified Field and has served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. As a professor at Harvard University and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, Graham has mentored and inspired the next generation of poets.

In Understanding Jorie Graham, N. S. Boone situates Graham among post–World War II and contemporary American poets, and he provides a look inside her life and career based on a series of exclusive personal interviews. Boone then traces the development of Graham's themes and style through her collections, providing detailed readings of the most significant poems in Graham's corpus. For scholars, students, and fans of Graham's poetry, the volume provides essential context and insight.

N. S. Boone is professor of English at Harding University. His writing has been published in journals, including Renascence, The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies and The Explicator.