My simple answer is. No I cant. I did use a few over the years with my
creative writing students, but they were texts on how to write sonnets
& other forms. In the first year only. After that, I used anthologies,
mainly the last few years, for the advanced students (so to speak),
the amazing double anthology,
Jerome Rothenberg & Pierre Joris, eds. Poems for the Millenium (Volume
One: From Fin-de-Siècle to Negritude, Volume Two: From Postwar to
Millennium). U of California
That will 'teach' you just about all you need to know about the
possibilities...
Then, as you have already somewhat discovered, essays by poets you
admire. I can think of such collections as Robert Hass's Twentieth
Century Pleasures; Thom Gunn's Shelf Life; many of the Writer-as-
Critic volumes (by Canadians) from NeWest Press (http://www.newestpress.com/catalog/
), I'd look especially at Webb, Bowering, Marlatt, Wah; if you can
find a copy somewhere, Bowering's Errata is a delight. Pierre Joris's
A Nomad Poetics.
There are many others, like these. I'd ay they're where to go (I
think, eg, that John Kinsella has just published a collection of non-
fiction on poetry & poetics...?).
And lots of poetry, of course (which I know you know)....
Doug
On 14-Jul-08, at 9:50 PM, Nathan Hondros wrote:
> Can anyone suggest a good textbook on poetry and poetics? I've always
> preferred reading the poetry itself, but I'm trying to improve my
> knowledge
> and avoid annoying myself and others by being a dilettante. My
> reading about
> poetry has always been more practical rather than theoretical -
> books on
> prosody, Rilke's letters, Pound's advice, unstructured reading from
> the
> Princeton Encyclopedia, and various relevant and unrelated essays by
> poets I
> admire. But I fear this reading lacks depth and structure.
> Suggestions will be taken very seriously.
>
> Thank you!
>
> Nathan
>
> --
> http://nathanhondros.blogspot.com
>
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
It's the first lesson, loss.
Who hasn't tried to learn it
at the hands of wind or thieves?
Jan Zwicky
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