Twenty Questions (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

J.D. McClatchy is that rare essayist who is concerned both with the intellect and with the emotions. The essays gathered in Twenty Questions are erudite and engaging inquiries into his life, poetry in general, and the work of poets both ignored and renowned. McClatchy's attention is democratic, as likely to scoop up a quote for his commonplace book (excerpted here) from Coco Chanel as Gertrude Stein, Alfred Hitchcock as W.H. Auden. Equal attention is given to the lives and work of Jean Garrigue and Stephen Sondheim as to those of Elizabeth Bishop and James Merrill. McClatchy somehow manages to address the oeuvre of Seamus Heaney in under seven pages and not seem to give short shrift. His writing is as direct as poems can be oblique, avoiding altogether any hint of academic jargon or critical posturing.

McClatchy weaves his way through these poets' lives and work, showing repeatedly the idiosyncratic balance between the private and the public, the straightforward and the hidden. These dichotomies are apparent more than anywhere in the life and work of Emily Dickinson. "Her life remains a puzzle," McClatchy says, "at once demurely conventional and powerfully estranged. And her poems remain a mystery, plain as a daisy and as cryptic as any heart." Though little attention is given to the current boom in poetry's popularity, one can't help but wonder if it might dilute McClatchy's definition of poetry as needing "secrets" and "disguises." "In a time when one is asked to admire a string-tied bundle of old newspapers at the Whitney Biennial," he says, "why shouldn't one take every heartcry-in-jagged-lines as a poem?" --Jane Steinberg

From Publishers Weekly

"All criticism," according to Oscar Wilde and McClatchy, "is autobiography." Embracing that dictum, this second essay collection (after the Melville Cane Award-winning White Paper) from the acclaimed poet, librettist and Yale Review editor mixes literary observations with observations of the literary life. Whether giving a refreshingly balanced review of Seamus Heaney (from the New Republic), a memoir of James Merrill (from the New Yorker) or a list of favorite sayings and quotations (representing everyone from Louis Armstrong to Andy Warhol), McClatchy is a witty critic and a willing teacher. In his title essay, for instance, he starts with the question, "What exactly is 'contemporary' poetry anyway?"?and goes on to explain precisely that, in terms that any high school student would understand and any academic or fellow poet would find provocative. Clearly, for McClatchy, life and poetry must be discussed in the same breath, with the same grace and good humor. One of the collection's most personal essays, a hilarious, bittersweet account of McClatchy's first love and deeply bungled "coming out," ends with a translation of the Horace poems that brought these memories back. In another piece, McClatchy slides from a memoir of his mentor Anne Sexton into a triptych of dream-poems about Elizabeth Bishop. This book is belles lettres at their best. It will interest anyone who cares about the state of poetry today?and, what is rare for a collection of literary essays, it will likely widen McClatchy's audience. (Mar.) FYI: Twenty Questions is appearing simultaneously with a volume of poetry, Ten Commandants (see page 69), published by Knopf.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (April 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 023111172X
• ISBN-13: 978-0231111720
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,619,128 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)