Criticism Poetry

Softcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press;, reprint, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, pictorial wrappers, 123 pages. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page and INSCRIBED by him on front fly leaf. Poems inspire our trust, argues James Longenbach in this bracing work, because they don't necessarily ask to be trusted. Theirs is the language of self-questioning--metaphors that turn against themselves, syntax that moves one way because it threatens to move another. Poems resist themselves more strenuously than they are resisted by the cultures receiving them. But the resistance to poetry is quite specifically the wonder of poetry. Considering a wide array of poets, from Virgil and Milton to Dickinson and Gluck, Longenbach suggests that poems convey knowledge only inasmuch as they refuse to be vehicles for the efficient transmission of knowledge. In fact, this self-resistance is the source of the reader's pleasure: we read poetry not to escape difficulty but to embrace it. An astute writer and critic of poems, Longenbach makes his case through a sustained engagement with the language of poetry. Each chapter brings a fresh perspective to a crucial aspect of poetry (line, syntax, figurative language, voice, disjunction) and shows that the power of poetry depends less on meaning than on the way in which it means--on the temporal process we negotiate in the act of reading or writing a poem. Readers and writers who embrace that process, Longenbach asserts, inevitably recoil from the exaggeration of the cultural power of poetry in full awareness that to inflate a poem's claim on our attention is to weaken it.

Hardcover. Albuquerque NM, University of New Mexico Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 217 pages. Includes essays on William Everson, Robert Duncan, Gary Snyder, Kenneth Rexroth, Michael McClure, Nathaniel Tarn, Thom Gunn and more. Notes, bibliography. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with minor edgewear, unclipped, 334 pages. Poet/critic's posthumously published third volume of essays, here mostly writer's he loved, including: Stead, Frost, Stevens, Kipling, Auden, Graves and Chekov and other Russians. Name on blank prelim page, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket. 51 pages, illustrated with wood engravings by Michael McCurdy. Bly's commentary sheds important new light on the intellectual and spiritual development of a major American literary figure. Mild fade to dj spine. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, W.W. Norton & Co., 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 299 pages. The author investigate the trauma behind poets Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, Randall Jarrell, and Delmore Schwartz. They formed one of the great constellations of talent in American literature. In the decades after World War II, they changed American poetry forever by putting themselves at risk in their poems in a new and provocative way. Their daring work helped to inspire the popular style of poetry now known as 'confessional.' But partly as a result of their openness, they have become better known for their tumultuous lives-afflicted by mental illness, alcoholism, and suicide-than for their work. This book reclaims their achievement by offering critical 'biographies of the poetry'-tracing the development of each poet's work, exploring their major themes and techniques, and examining how they transformed life into art. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Albany NY, State University of New York Press, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn and tanned dust jacket, 262 pages. A critical introduction to major English poetry of the nineteenth century with an analysis of the changes in subject matter form, tone, and technique resulting from romantic influences. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Syracuse University Press, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 185 pages. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1st, 1973, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn and chipped dust jacket. 401 pages with index. Ex-lib copy with stamp to front fly leaf, envelope on rear endpaper, sticker on dust jacket spine, interior clean.

Softcover. Fredonia NY, White Pine Press, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 254 pages. SIGNED BY ST. JOHN at the 2000 Breadloaf Writers Conference. Essays and reviews by poet David St. John of collections of verse by poets including Marvin Bell, Charles Wright, Donald Hall, Randall Jarrell, Pablo Neruda, Donald Justice, Mark Strand, Jorie Graham et al, followed by six interviews with David St. John (in various journals).

Softcover. Middletown PA, Pennsylvania State University, 1st, 1983, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover. Red perfect bound wrappers, 176 pages. Covers with a few faint creases, spine slightly faded, mild wave to book. Prints Williams' 80-page 1914 little red notebook in exact-size facsimiles with a transcription and two additional essays from his son William Eric Williams; additional contributions by Reed Whittemore, James Laughlin, Cecelia Tichi, Peter Schmidt, Mary Ellen Solt, Henry Sayre, Emily Wallace, Louis Martz and Albert Sonnenfeld. The journal showcases scholarly essays on any aspect of the life and work of William Carlos Williams.

Hardcover. NY, Lawrence Hill and Company, 1st, 1973, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 234 pages.Introduction by Jack Conroy. Other contributors include Nelson Algren, Langston Hughes, Erskine Caldwell, James T. Farrell, William Carlos Williams, Michael Gold, Kenneth Patchen and Karl Shapiro. Clean, tight copy. Cheap paper tanning.

Hardcover. UK, Liverpool University Press, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 328 pages. Focusing on a wide range of poetry written between 1941 and 1945, this work explores Soviet poets' response to World War II. It also traces the influence of Stalinist culture, and departures from literary norms. Clean copy.