Essays about Poetry
from a variety of sources
reflecting a diversity of aesthetics
(tip of the iceberg: mostly does not include reviews or interviews)
Adrian Blevins & Cathy Park Hong--a debate on the ideas in the above essay. Also see Hong’s “How Words Fail” (listed below)
Harold Bloom. "They Have the Numbers; We, the Heights." (controversial introduction to The Best of the Best American Poetry.)
Eavan Boland “Daughters.” (Introducing an exhibit at Academy of American Poets)
Edward Byrne. “One Poet’s Notes.” In format, this is a blog, but it’s really a fine and ever-expanding collection of thoughtful and detailed reviews & notes on poetry. Highly recommended.
Carolina Quarterly. "The Art of Far and Near: An Interview with Robert Morgan." (a poet who should be better known)
Toi Derricotte. "The Bond of Living Things: Poems of Ancestry. (Introducing an exhibit at Academy of American Poets)
Joseph Epstein. "Who Killed Poetry?" (frequently discussed essay attacking contemporary poetry) [NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE]
Elaine Equi. "Unspeakable Ambitions." (reflections on poetic ambition)
Edward Garnett. "A New American Poet." (early appreciation of Robert Frost--from 1915)
Dana Gioia. "Can Poetry Matter?" (the essay that launched a thousand other essays)
Dana Gioia. "Hearing from Poetry's Audience." (a follow-up to "Can Poetry Matter?" and the response it received.)
R. S. Gwynn. "Introduction" to New Expansive Poetry. (good introduction to Expansive Poetry's aims)
R. S. Gwynn. "A Field Guide to the Poetics of the '90s." (lively, readable overview)
Donald Hall. "Death to the Death of Poetry" (good to read in conjunction with Dana Gioia)
Donald Hall. "Flying Revision's Flag"(an interview)
Mark Halliday. “The Wise Guy in the Back Row.” (on James Tate)
Seamus Heaney. "Crediting Poetry." (his Nobel lecture, 1995)
Thomas Wentworth Higginson--on Emily Dickinson (1891)
Tony Hoagland. “Let’s Get Lost: The Image as Escape in the Poems of Larry Levis”
Cathy Park Hong. “How Words Fail” (a response to Adrian Blevins’s “In Praise of the Sentance”--see above)
Paul Lake. "The Shape of Poetry." (in 2 parts)
David Lehman. "All-Century Team." (who are the best American poets of the 20th Century?)
David Lehman. "The Questions of Postmodernism." (very readable overview)
Walt McDonald. "Advice I Wish I'd Been Told." (for students)
Jerome McGann. "Contemporary Poetry, Alternate Routes" (on Language Poetry)
Ron Padgett. “Gimmicks.” Prompts for poems.
Walter Pater. "Style." (1888)
Joseph Powell. “On the Newer Bees in Darwin’s Garden.” (on nature poetry)
Craig Raine. “Look Back in Wonder.” --on the nature of memory in literature
Ira Sadoff. "Neo-Formalism: A Dangerous Nostalgia." (1990 attack on New Formalism)
Ellen Bryant Voigt. "Song and Story" (not an essay but a thoughtful interview with Steven Cramer)
Tom Wayman. "Writing Philosophy." (popular Canadian poet sums up his career: introducing his selected poems)
Contact me:
Poetry Librarian:
David Graham
