I've been fascinated by the essay/poetry crossover in a long while as 
a richer way into passing on writing skills rather than through the 
narrow gate of any creative ghetto. If you mention a broader writing 
course to most British academics, they will say it smacks of American-
style Composition or Rhetoric courses. And yet the skills needed to 
negotiate with the many stands(or strands) of contemporary poetry 
(whether innovatory or minimalist etc) seem on a steady decline. I 
was depressed some time ago when a "theorist" in the Eng dept here, 
someone who happily surfs through  recondite psychoanalytical 
studies, said that he had to confess he couldn't make any headway 
with Prynne.
  The American tradition seems richer and there are several 
interesting books on the "essayistic" (I'll happily forward details). 
Geoffrey Hartman has a special interest in this area in the cause of 
a wider notion of what literature is, and makes some useful moves to 
keep the literary essay from merely sliding into an "intellectual 
poem". Feminists have also found the resources of the essay (moving 
beyond academic decorum but skirting fiction) useful for their needs, 
as have ecocritics. See, for instance, John Elder's Imagining the 
Earth which splices straight lit crit with "excursions" or essayistic 
reflections on his immediate space. 
  As for poetry - wasn't the Preface to  Lyrical Ballads ultimately 
to be an integral part of that poetry (despite misgivings of 
Coleridge)? I'd be interested to know how poets on this list feel the 
essays (or even reviews) they write relate to their work. In recent 
years I've produced a couple of prefatory essays to go with pieces 
of mine, and I'm intrigued how they both reinforce from outside a 
certain silence or inadvertence within poetry, but supplement it by 
using the very material (in some cases) the poetry was quite right 
not to use.
  If poetry was presented in a less exclusively "creative" way, but 
compromised by prefaces & notes, might it engage more with the skills 
readers acknowledge they ought to have?
Peter
Peter Larkin
Philosophy & Literature Librarian
University of Warwick Library
Coventry CV4 7AL UK
Tel: 01203 528151 Fax: 01203 524211
Email: [log in to unmask]


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