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Dana Teen Lomax

Letters to Poets Paperback – Illustrated, October 1, 2008

by Jennifer and Dana Firestone and Teen Lomax (Author)

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Letters to Poets honors and commemorates the hundredth anniversary of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet by partnering a selection of 14 of the country’s leading contemporary poets with 14 emerging poets and documenting their correspondences. These poets challenge the hierarchies and pitfalls endemic to the mentoring process, and ask some of the day’s toughest, most vital questions concerning race, class, and gender. Spanning a range of not only generations but cultural, aesthetic, and economic backgrounds, these diverse pairings both challenge and support each other artistically and politically. The result is in turns dramatic, enlightening, and entertaining.

Print length

340 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Saturnalia Books
Publication date

October 1, 2008
Dimensions

6 x 1 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0975499084
ISBN-13

978-0975499085
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Here are some possible strategies to navigate this world and some great bits of wisdom; you will need them."--Joy Harjo "Ridiculous Human Things" (4/1/2009 12:00:00 AM)

"In the age of the quick email, it is wonderful to pick up the heft of Letters to Poets, by poets, and for poets. Here are epistles that demonstrate that the pleasures of poetry are clustered around the pleasures of thinking with others."--Juliana Spahr

"These letters continue in the tradition of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. Unlike Rilke's letters, this is a collection of many different established poets communing by letter with younger, emerging poets. These letters bear advice, philosophical discourse, theoretical strategies, dreams, weather reports, questions, answers, and, poetry. What happens here is a kind of call and response by letter. And as in Rilke's letters, these missives are lively, urgent, wise, erudite, witty, political and absolutely necessary to a contemporary discussion of the current state of the making of poetry."--Joy Harjo

Here are some possible strategies to navigate this world and some great bits of wisdom; you will need them. Ridiculous Human Things"

In the age of the quick email, it is wonderful to pick up the heft of Letters to Poets, by poets, and for poets. Here are epistles that demonstrate that the pleasures of poetry are clustered around the pleasures of thinking with others. Juliana Spahr"

These letters continue in the tradition of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. Unlike Rilke's letters, this is a collection of many different established poets communing by letter with younger, emerging poets. These letters bear advice, philosophical discourse, theoretical strategies, dreams, weather reports, questions, answers, and, poetry. What happens here is a kind of call and response by letter. And as in Rilke's letters, these missives are lively, urgent, wise, erudite, witty, political and absolutely necessary to a contemporary discussion of the current state of the making of poetry. Joy Harjo"

This courageous and visionary book enacts and embodies a concrete relational aesthetics that gives poetic voices an epistolary space for linguistic intimacy and soul-sharing. Don't miss it! Cornel West"

Ridiculous Human Things"

"This courageous and visionary book enacts and embodies a concrete "relational aesthetics" that gives poetic voices an epistolary space-- for linguistic intimacy and soul-sharing. Don't miss it!"--Cornel West

About the Author

JENNIFER FIRESTONE is the author of Holiday (2008), Waves (2007), From Flashes (2006) and snapshot (2004). She teaches poetry at The New School For Liberal Arts at Eugene Lang College where she is the Poet in Residence. She lives in Brooklyn with her family. DANA TEEN LOMAX is the author of Curren¢y (2006), and Room (1999). Her work has been published internationally and received the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson prize for poetry, among others. She works as the Interim Director of Small Press Traffic, teaches writing at San Francisco State University and the University of San Francisco, and lives in northern California with her family.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Saturnalia Books; Illustrated edition (October 1, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 340 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0975499084
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0975499085
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.25 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,176,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,200 in Literary Letters
- #4,515 in Poetry Literary Criticism (Books)
- #5,746 in Poetry Anthologies (Books)

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7 ratings

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Dana Teen Lomax

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kindergarde Wins 2014 Johns Hopkins University Press Prize

KINDERGARDE: AVANT-GARDE POEMS, PLAYS, STORIES, AND SONGS FOR CHILDREN HAS BEEN SELECTED AS CO-WINNER OF THE 2014 LION & UNICORN AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN NORTH AMERICAN POETRY

San Francisco, California, November 24, 2014—Sponsored by Johns Hopkins University Press, The Lion and the Unicorn Award will be announced via the publication of an essay discussing the year in children's literature. Judges for this years’ competition were Lissa Paul, Donelle Ruwe, and Craig Svonkin; the journal is edited by Joseph Thomas, PhD.

Published by Black Radish Books, edited by poet Dana Teen Lomax, Kindergarde includes the work of internationally known innovative writers including Lyn Hejinian, Robin Blaser, Wanda Coleman, Kenneth Goldsmith, Cathy Park Hong, Harryette Mullen, Charles Bernstein, Eileen Myles, Christian Bök, Leslie Scalapino, Kevin Killian, Evie Shockley, Juliana Spahr, Anne Waldman, Juan Felipe Herrera, Rosmarie Waldrop, and many others. Kindergarde is without a doubt the hippest Holiday gift around!

Kindergarde is the first anthology to ever be recognized by the award.

PRAISE FOR KINDERGARDE

Adventurous writings for literary risk-takers and thrill-seekers. –Kirkus Reviews

...the array of poets stepping up to present avant-garde approaches to writing for young writers is unprecedented; the anthology is a gift to writers of any age. –Rain Taxi

Kindergarde operates as a kind of guide for children, a blueprint of creativity written in the chalk of

the avant-garde, where the inhibiting constraint of technique is second to innovation and experiment.

– Ella Longpre, Naropa University

Personally, I love this project a lot because kids are smarter and weirder than many books give them

credit for. –Kickstarter

Kindergarde successfully reaches the anthology’s intended audience of children as well as a wider

audience: readers of avant-garde literature. –Carolyn Hembree, Jacket2

A highly celebrated and joyful collection for children from ages 3-15, Kindergarde: Avant-garde Poems, Plays, Stories, and Songs for Children is available through Small Press Distribution and Amazon Books.

This project was made possible through a grant from Small Press Traffic.

Contact:

Marthe Reed & Nicole Mauro, Publishers, Black Radish Books

blackradishbooks@gmail.com

Kindergarde photos and audio clips available

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I, Too, Like It

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 9, 2009

A book with five straight reviews of five stars apiece must be pretty convincing, and for me to add a sixth five star review is really unbelievable. Ive been reviewing for years and this has actually never happened before, except for one product, a personal product, which got deleted once Amazon figured out what it actually was. Therefore I urge you to secure a copy of this book now, for it may become a collectors item tomorrow, that's how good it is.

Whether you are a poet yourself (as I am), or not even interested in poetry (like my cat Sylvia), this is an essential item. Not that every conversation is of equal value. Some of the "friendships" brokered for this volume are thinner than others and in one at least the reader gets the opinion that the younger poet has come to detest the elder by the end of their exchange. Editors Lomax and Firestone asked each pair of poets to limit themselves to three letters apiece, but the "letter" itself as a form is infinitely capacious and I suspect that some of the big talkers crammed five or six actual letters into the space of one, so they have that charm, the charm of reading something leisurely like Spenser, while others are terse, almost vatic, like that frog splashing into Basho's pond. There are beautiful strengths to each model.

A bittersweet flavor emits from this book as I turn to page 83 for the wise exchange between young Hajera Ghori and the venerable Alfred Arteaga. She asks him in so many words how to write romantic poetry, without falling into the trap of cliche. He tells her that he is suffering from "broken hearts," falling first for a woman sworn to another, then in failing health, his actual physical heart "broken," in need of repair. It is doubly sad since last summer, not even ten months ago, his great heart failed him utterly and San Francisco lost one of its best poets. Yet his words and his wisdom live beyond the gates of life.

In general I can recommend each of these exchanges: you never know what the poets in question plan to spring on you. Quincy Troupe tells us what painters have been important to him, from Picasso to Basquiat. Brenda Iijima provides a list of female world leaders during the period between 1640 and 1670. Eileen Myles explains about utility: öne is always trying to be the better labeler of one's usefulness to sabotage some other narrative about yourself that may be getting written meanwhile without our knowing. You girls alone? You know, like that."

Quick now, before they know what they've got, buy a copy, or two for the future.

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Jim Norrena

Poetic license through and through

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 5, 2009

The structure of Letters to Poets is a uniquely intriguing exercise in partnering writers on either side of the chronological gamut to share with readers what at times may seem far more personal than the poetry itself. Now before you try to smack me upside the head for possibly insinuating direct correspondence somehow trumps the intimate (and intricate) nature of poetry, I want to emphasize that behind every poet is a person who has real-world challenges with mundane things, such as getting work published.

Letters offers a collection of real poets--be they nuanced or newborn--who share themselves in ways that we can appreciate as ordinary, although their work is anything but. How do poets manage the dichotomy of the sublime with the ordinary? One might say like everyone else, but that isn't necessarily true, as a poet's vision is anything but ordinary.

I found Firestone's and Lomax's approach to presenting these poets to be rewarding through and through. Much like the cover of the book, we have different "approaches": colors, feels, placements; yet each receives something inside to pass along to appreciative and weary minds alike. What an amazing image for how we writers live in this world! My sense is that these editors knew from the beginning that such a collection and juxtaposition of material could not possibly emerge as ordinary.

The magic is not in what the letters say so much as it is in how the letters comingle and unite in themes that can be addressed in both a mundane and extraordinary manner.

Bravo to the editors and contributors of this wonderful collection!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 9, 2008

I didn't think poets wrote letters anymore--attentive, old-fangled, pen-to-paper affairs that touch on current projects, poetics, jobs and family, political events, and sympathetic close readings of the recipient's work. Turns out they don't, or didn't until editors Dana Teen Lomax and Jennifer Firestone thought to ask them to. The upshot is 14 pairs of poets exchanging up to 3 letters over a 1-year period in time for the centenary of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, the model and provocation for the project.

I read the book in one big sitting, egged on by the voyeuristic pleasure implicit in reading others' letters, and by the chance to hear poets talk about their work in a more relaxed and collaborative format. Some of the things I learned are that older poets, even the `outsider' ones, get around a lot (Kyoto, Rome, Morocco, Colorado, San Diego); that New York's a brutal place for poets to live in; that poetry's political efficacy is still Question #1 for writers across the "experimental" spectrum; that poetry, unlike so much else today, continues to function via personal ties of respect and (sometimes rote) affection; and that race, class, and gender still impinge on poets' consciousness in pretty much the same ways they did a generation ago. My favorite exchanges were Judith Goldman's with Leslie Scalapino, and John Yau's with Anselm Berrigan, and I was inevitably drawn to moments where the elder poet disagreed with or brought up the younger. But even the less thrilling match-ups yield something surprising, and most left me curious to know how the correspondence continued outside the window of this engaging project.

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