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tarakingwrites's review against another edition
3.0
I picked this book up, judged it by its cover, and brought it home with me from the library. I loved the title, I loved the idea...but what I found was not what I hoped for.
It's a fairly academic take on the creative trajectories of a handful of poets, some of whom I know better than others. He takes as his topic the development of the poetic voice...a topic highly relevant to my current practice as a nascent poet, still figuring out what and who I am. But the book itself felt more like a brick wall covered in ivy than an invitation into the gifts and wonder of poetry. I found myself cringing, battling imposter syndrome, and generally feeling irritable at the gatekeeping of the book. Filled with phrases like "serious poets", "reading deeply and at length", "significant poet", "major poet"...sure, those phrases are descriptive, but they're also exclusive. I couldn't help but feel the book shutting the door on people like me, when it purports instead to be "for writers wondering how they might light out--or even scale the peak of the mountain". The fundamental premise was hierarchical (a single mountain which a single poet might scale!) even when it was tracing a lineage of influence. Not a great mass of us, all working together, reading together, and sculpting poetry together--but a few important voices, and the rest of us erased to dust. It's just not the philosophy I have about writing.
The world of poetry described here feels suffocating. The poets and poems discussed are presumed known by the reader to the point that the lines chosen illuminate very little. It reminded me of the time I spent in poetry classes in college, a time when I had a vivid writing life, but also felt shunned and ignored because I wasn't climbing the academic ladder. The good news is I don't feel any renewed desire to attend an MFA program.
There are some good elements here. The essay on the Ars Poetica was useful, and interesting. And the end of any given essay tended to be lovely. Many of the poems excerpted in the book were wonderful.
This is definitely the most critical book review so far, and I have no doubt it says more about me than about the book. But in any case, I didn't finish it. I put it down and am moving on to actual poetry.
It's a fairly academic take on the creative trajectories of a handful of poets, some of whom I know better than others. He takes as his topic the development of the poetic voice...a topic highly relevant to my current practice as a nascent poet, still figuring out what and who I am. But the book itself felt more like a brick wall covered in ivy than an invitation into the gifts and wonder of poetry. I found myself cringing, battling imposter syndrome, and generally feeling irritable at the gatekeeping of the book. Filled with phrases like "serious poets", "reading deeply and at length", "significant poet", "major poet"...sure, those phrases are descriptive, but they're also exclusive. I couldn't help but feel the book shutting the door on people like me, when it purports instead to be "for writers wondering how they might light out--or even scale the peak of the mountain". The fundamental premise was hierarchical (a single mountain which a single poet might scale!) even when it was tracing a lineage of influence. Not a great mass of us, all working together, reading together, and sculpting poetry together--but a few important voices, and the rest of us erased to dust. It's just not the philosophy I have about writing.
The world of poetry described here feels suffocating. The poets and poems discussed are presumed known by the reader to the point that the lines chosen illuminate very little. It reminded me of the time I spent in poetry classes in college, a time when I had a vivid writing life, but also felt shunned and ignored because I wasn't climbing the academic ladder. The good news is I don't feel any renewed desire to attend an MFA program.
There are some good elements here. The essay on the Ars Poetica was useful, and interesting. And the end of any given essay tended to be lovely. Many of the poems excerpted in the book were wonderful.
This is definitely the most critical book review so far, and I have no doubt it says more about me than about the book. But in any case, I didn't finish it. I put it down and am moving on to actual poetry.
kateraed's review against another edition
3.0
Teicher makes an attempt at organizing the essays under a cohesive theme of a poet's development -- it doesn't always hold. I enjoyed it more when I remembered it was a series of essays.
I read this mostly to work by analogy -- poetry and preaching are more similar than they are different. I'm not sure I walked away with any insights into how to develop, but have some signposts for the journey.
I read this mostly to work by analogy -- poetry and preaching are more similar than they are different. I'm not sure I walked away with any insights into how to develop, but have some signposts for the journey.
nicole_koenigsknecht's review against another edition
3.0
"A poem is something that can't otherwise be said addressed to someone who can't otherwise hear it. By this definition, poetry is deeply impractical and deeply necessary. There aren't good words for most things we need to express, and lots of people we need to say them to are dead or otherwise unavailable." Craig Morgan Teicher opens his first section of essays with this simple, yet apt definition of poetry. He goes on to examine the poet's ultimate striving--to say the "unsayable."
nc_exlibris's review against another edition
3.0
Read the poets/poems/poetry rather then read about them.
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