A learned but knotty defense on poetry's behalf, persuasive to no one but those who need no convincing.
Poetry doesn't want to be your friend. Get over it.
For poet (Mean Free Path, 2012, etc.), novelist (10:04, 2014, etc.), and MacArthur Fellow Lerner (English/Brooklyn Coll.), the only kind of love poetry permits is tough love. It's an art with a mean streak, or at least a highly forbidding, unlikable temper. It may be a lot of things—melodic, perceptive, brilliant, awful—but it also carries a threat that warns you to either tread slowly or stay away altogether. "I, too, dislike it," Marianne Moore famously wrote; Lerner adds that dislike is part of the bargain: “What kind of art has as a condition of its possibility a perfect contempt?” The problem seems to be that poetry aims higher than other arts and runs the risk of greater failure. "Poetry arises from the desire to get beyond the finite and the historical," writes the author, "the human world of violence and difference—and to reach the transcendent or divine." The payoff, if there is one, is in the effort. "The hatred of poetry is internal to the art,” writes Lerner, because it is the task of the poet and poetry reader to use the heat of that hatred to burn the actual off the virtual like fog." The author pays homage to the individual, solitary nature of poetry and its refusal to be tamed or coddled, but he does the act of reading no favors. He makes writing poetry seem like a zero-sum game and reading it like torture. The closer he gets to some usable approach, the more it eludes him. His struggle to give concrete form to an increasingly abstract concept of art is just "form gulping after formlessness," as Wallace Stevens put it.
A learned but knotty defense on poetry's behalf, persuasive to no one but those who need no convincing.Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-86547-820-6
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
