Description
Cultural Writing. From one of our most esteemed contemporary poets, a collection of essays about reading and poetics, written over many decades, and touching on many centuries. "We expect poets to give a first-hand account of what poetry is. But some poets, when they write criticism, produce a kind of prose that is itself on the verge of being poetry. Valery, Stevens and Marianne Moore belong to this "visionary company." And so does Barbara Guest, whose writings on poetry, collected here, are among the most inspiring works of their kind. It is a deep pleasure to know that such writing can still exist" --John Ashbery.
Author Bio
Barbara Guest (1920-2006) published over twenty volumes of poetry and earned numerous awards, including the Robert Frost Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement from the Poetry Society of America. Her writing career began in New York, but the last couple of decades of her life were spent in Berkeley, California, where she became friends with many West Coast poets, including Stephen Ratcliffe. Barbara Guest write poetry, essays, art criticism, and plays. Her collages appeared on the covers of several of her books of poetry. She was also well known for her biography of the poet H.D., Herself Defined: The Poet H.D. and Her World (1984). Her Collected Poems, edited by Hadley Haden Guest, was published by Wesleyan University Press in 2008.
Author City: USA