This book collects, in a single volume, the best of Robert Peters' fearless, impassioned, and often hilarious assessments of contemporary American poetry. Included are some thirty-five essays and reviews on such major figures as Robert Bly, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, Diane Wakowski, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Tess Gallager, Gary Snyder, Jack Spicer, and W. S. Merwin, as well as commentaries on many lesser-known poets.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
It's hard to dislike a poetry critic who chooses to discuss John Ashbery in the form of a mock-colloquy between two overeducated characters named Dick and Jane ("Reaming eucalyptus roots from sewer lines is simpler than deciphering Ashbery," Dick asserts). Peters ( Poems, Selected and New ) takes a refreshingly unacademic approach to the assessment of contemporary American poetry; these essays, representing his work of the last quarter century, try to cut a path through the "safe forms, safe language, safe themes" that in his opinion have clogged the scene. His correctives--positive proselytizing, witty naysaying, and the mixed review--are imaginative. Interspersed with pieces addressing a broad range of writers--Tess Gallagher, Allen Ginsberg--are more thematic chapters that inspect and assail opening lines in poems and (in "Biopsies") question the hows and whys of Language Poetry. Peters is openly impatient with failure and pretension, and he makes no effort to sound a representative note. In his view of criticism, consensus seems not to be the point. That's partly why his views are both arguable and bracing.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From the Back Cover
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