by Craig Morgan Teicher ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 6, 2018
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
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by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996
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
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by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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developed by Ludwig Bemelmans ; illustrated by Steven Salerno
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