Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture

by Dana Gioia, Dana Gioia (Introduction)

Overview

In 1991, Dana Gioia's provocative essay "Can Poetry Matter?" was published in the Atlantic Monthly, and received more public response than any other piece in the magazine's history. In his book, Gioia more fully addressed the question: Is there a place for poetry to be part of modern American mainstream culture? Ten years later, the debate is as lively and heated as ever. Graywolf is pleased to re-issue this highly acclaimed collection in a handsome new edition, which includes a new Introduction by distinguished critic and poet, Dana Gioia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781555973704
Publisher:	Graywolf Press
Publication date:	09/01/2002
Edition description:	Anniversary
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	273,605
Product dimensions:	5.95(w) x 8.95(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

An acclaimed poet, essayist, anthologist, BBC commentator, and critic, Dana Gioia is also the author of, most recently, Interrogations at Noon, a collection of poems that received the American Book Award, and Nosferatu, a libretto. He was recently nominated to be Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and lives in Santa Rosa, California, with his family.

Table of Contents

Introduction to Tenth-Anniversary Edition
Preface

Can Poetry Matter?
The Dilemma of the Long Poem
Notes on the New Formalism
Strong Counsel (Robinson Jeffers)
The Loneliness of Weldon Kees
The Anonymity of the Regional Poet (Ted Kooser)
Business and Poetry
Two Views of Wallace Stevens
The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man
The Emperor of Hartford
Bourgeois in Bohemia (T. S. Eliot)
The Successful Career of Robert Bly

Short Views
John Ashbery
Margaret Atwood
Jared Carter
James Dickey
Tom Disch
Maxine Kumin
Radcliffe Squires
Theodore Weiss

The Difficult Case of Howard Moss
Tradition and an Individual Talent (Donald Justice)
The Example of Elizabeth Bishop
The Poet in an Age of Prose

Editorial Reviews

No one, I think, has written with greater clarity or greater poignancy-or with a greater sense of urgency, either-about the 'subculture' in which the art of poetry is still confined....” —Hilton Kramer, The New Criterion

“Can Poetry Matter? is an important book, and anyone who professes to care about the state of American poetry will have to take it into account.” —World Literature Today

“If you're an educated general reader, and you read only one book about contemporary poetry, this should be that book.” —Booklist

From the Publisher

No one, I think, has written with greater clarity or greater poignancy — or with a greater sense of urgency . . .
— The New Criterion

Hilton Kramer

If you're an educated general reader, and you read only one book about contemporary poetry, this should be that book.

Booklist

Can Poetry Matter? is an important book, and anyone who professes to care about the state of American poetry . . .

World Literature Today

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