Imperfect but the insights outweigh the pretension.
What prompts people to write poetry? What permits a poet to revise himself? Poet and critic Teicher (The Trembling Answers, 2017, etc.) offers new versions of previously published essays, each of which considers aspects of poets’ artistic development.
Refreshingly, the author discusses less well-established poets such as Monica McClure and francine j. harris, but he is at his most astute when assessing the oeuvres of poets whose careers are complete, or nearly so. He reads Sylvia Plath, for example, as a poet who experienced a dramatic breakthrough later in her career. Her early work demonstrated “a virtuosity of technique,” but it wasn’t until the last poems in The Colossus and the “extraordinary abandon” of Ariel that Plath found a subject worthy of her technical power (herself). Teicher’s assessment of W.S. Merwin, by turns laudatory and sharply critical, manages in 13 pages to map a complex, persuasive chronology: Merwin’s early affection for “Pre-Raphaelite ornamentation,” his nearly perfect middle-period poetry, his descent into a kind of solipsistic self-parody, and his late work, in which he “can step out of his own way and let the poem come through unobstructed.” Considering Louise Glück, Teicher makes the illuminating suggestion that her poetry is animated by a tension: Glück finds meaning in everything—in the merest leaf or sunbathing episode—but that habit of mind “grates against her belief that the world is mostly meaningless, mostly uncaring.” Teicher’s narrative is marred by occasional romantic self-seriousness—e.g., poets “are people who, for any number of reasons, cannot, or at one point could not, speak…the keepers of the unsayable”—and he is on shakier ground when, instead of discussing poems, he attempts to divine the motives of the poet, as when he suggests that Glück uses a “mask” in Faithful and Virtuous Night because she needed to “fool herself into [the] vulnerability” required to write about the approach of death.
Imperfect but the insights outweigh the pretension.Pub Date: Nov. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55597-821-1
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Graywolf
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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