My Business Is Circumference: Poets on Influence and Mastery

by Berg, Stephen

• ISBN13: 9780966491395
• ISBN10: 0966491394
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-09-01
• Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist

Summary

Contemporary American poets provide a multifaceted view of the creative process.

Table of Contents

Preface	xv
The Poetry Does Not Matter	xvii
Stephen Berg
Hymn	3	(3)
A. R. Ammons
The Rhodora: On being asked, whence is the flower?	4	(1)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Aboard at a Ship's Helm	5	(1)
Walt whitman
Poem	5	(1)
William Carlos Williams
Hymns	6	(1)
iii.29.86	7	(1)
L. S. Asekoff
The Mysteries of Mastery	8	(9)
No Longer a Girl	17	(4)
Stephanie Brown
Excerpt from The Day of the Locust	18	(2)
Nathanael West
Excerpt from The Postman Always Rings Twice	20	(1)
James M. Cain
My Southern California: West, Cain	21	(15)
Hayden Carruth
Excerpt from Cymbeline	31	(1)
William Shakespeare
Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.	32	(1)
Ben Jonson
Excerpt from Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot	33	(1)
Alexander Pope
422	33	(1)
Emily Dickinson
Brown's Descent, or The Willy-Nilly Slide	34	(2)
Robert Frost
Influences	36	(3)
What To Do	39	(1)
Training Films of the Real	40	(7)
Gillian Conoley
Saint	43	(1)
Stephane Mallarme
1090	44	(1)
Emily Dickinson
280	44	(1)
Phonemics	45	(2)
Jack Spicer
My Masters	47	(4)
Nearby	51	(4)
Amy Gerstler
They Flee from Me	52	(1)
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Prologue to Romeo and Juliet	53	(1)
William Shakespeare
You felons on trial in courts	53	(1)
Walt Whitman
Excerpt from The Pillow Book	54	(1)
Sei Shonagon
A Servant of My Work	55	(3)
Complaint of the Poet to Her Empty Purse	58	(5)
Judith Hall
The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse	59	(1)
Geoffrey Chaucer
Sonnet 29	60	(1)
William Shakespeare
The Lake Isle	61	(1)
Ezra Pound
Hard Times Cotton Mill Girls Anonymous	61	(1)
Berber Song Anonymous	62	(1)
Notes in Medias Res	63	(2)
At the Public Pool	65	(4)
Hunt Hawkins
Poem to Our Son After a High Fever	66	(1)
Saron Olds
The Day Lady Died	67	(1)
Frank O'Hara
The Wood-Pile	68	(1)
Robert Frost
Influence and Mastery	69	(6)
Skipping Stones	75	(6)
Jane Hirshfield
Odi et Amo	76	(1)
Catullus
Odes 1, 11	77	(1)
Horace
The Lovely Fork	78	(1)
Bertolt Brecht
Hidden Things	79	(2)
C. P. Cavafy
Minotaur	81	(1)
Speed and Perfection	81	(1)
Moment	82	(1)
Tool	83	(4)
Claudia Keelan
288	84	(1)
Emily Dickinson
881	84	(1)
Excerpts from Song of Myself	85	(2)
Walt Whitman
Without Sovereignty	87	(6)
The Millpond	93	(6)
Yusef Komunyakaa
The Diver	96	(1)
Robert Hayden
The Fish	97	(2)
Elizabeth Bishop
The Lure	99	(4)
Bridge of Light	103	(5)
Dana Levin
Excerpts from the Marriage of Heaven and Hell	105	(1)
William Blake
The Garden of Love	106	(1)
Excerpt from The Book of Thel	107	(1)
Infant Sorrow	107	(1)
Strong Water	108	(4)
Media	112	(5)
Lisa Lewis
Excerpt from Samson Agonistes	114	(1)
John Milton
Excerpt from A Wave	115	(1)
John Ashbery
Excerpt from Crusoe in England	116	(1)
Elizabeth Bishop
Media	117	(9)
Voice to Voice	126	(1)
Laurence Lieberman
The Pull of the Sentence	127	(17)
The Buffalo	130	(4)
Marianne Moore
Butterfly	134	(3)
D. H. Lawrence
The Geranium The odore Roethke	137	(3)
The Air Plant	140	(4)
Hart Crane
Grain Burning Far Away	144	(1)
Thomas Lux
On Influence	145	(7)
Voyages, II	147	(2)
Hart Crane
Poem	149	(1)
Bill Knott
Ignorance 1967	149	(1)
Widow's Winter	149	(2)
The Jewel	151	(1)
James Wright
Three Candles/And A Bowerbird	152	(4)
Jane Mead
The Wild Iris	153	(1)
Louise Gluck
Danse Russe	154	(1)
William Carlos Williams
The Snow Man	155	(1)
Wallace Stevens
The Life	155	(1)
James Wright
Influence, Process, Mastery: The making of a poem	156	(8)
The Wisdom of Not Knowing	164	(6)
Jack Myers
The Child	166	(2)
W. S. Merwin
To See If Something Comes Next	168	(1)
Jack Gilbert
Say Yes Quickly	169	(1)
Jelaluddin Rumi
The Optimist, The Pessimist, and the Other	170	(1)
The Flicker	171	(1)
Arcady Siskiyou	172	(5)
Donald Revell
Uppon a Deedmans Hed	173	(2)
John Skelton
Excerpt from Phyllyp Sparowe	175	(1)
Flowers	176	(1)
Robert Creeley
Proper Rites	177	(3)
At the Table	180	(6)
Len Roberts
Ode on a Grecian Urn	182	(2)
John Keats
90 North	184	(1)
Randall Jarrell
Excerpt from Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking	185	(1)
Walt Whitman
Home After Three Months Away	185	(1)
Robert Lowell
Drinking at the Well	186	(12)
John Keats
Randall Jarrell
Walt Whitman
Robert Lowell
Reminder	198	(2)
Michael Ryan
756	198	(1)
Emily Dickinson
599	199	(1)
1304	199	(1)
Influence and Mastery	200	(8)
Did You Ever Get a Phone Call	208	(5)
Ira Sadoff
Excerpts from the Sleepers	209	(2)
Walt Whitman
Neglect	211	(2)
C. K. Williams
508	213	(1)
Emily Dickinson
Multiplicity of Voices	213	(4)
200 in Hell	217	(6)
Hugh Seidman
The Garden of Earthly Delights: Hell	220	(1)
Czeslaw Milosz
What Mr. Cogito Thinks About Hell	220	(1)
Zbigniew Herbert
Fame	221	(1)
Charlotte Mew
Sermon on Death	221	(2)
Cesar Vallejo
The Metric is 1	223	(3)
Nurses	226	(4)
Jennifer Snyder
Too Many Names	227	(2)
Pablo Neruda
Vertical Poetry, First, 4	229	(1)
Roberto Juarroz
They Feed They Lion	229	(1)
Philip Levine
Second Looking and a Theory of Flamingos	230	(4)
Larry Levis Visits Easton, PA During a November Freeze	234	(6)
Gerald Stern
Dream Songs, 149 and 157	236	(1)
John Berryman
Pagan Rites	237	(2)
Paul Goodman
i sing of Olaf glad and big	239	(1)
E. E. Cummings
Sorrow by Absence	240	(4)
Remembrance Day	244	(4)
Lucien Stryk
Burning Oneself to Death	245	(1)
Shinkichi Takahashi
The Pipe	246	(1)
Thistles	246	(1)
The Peach	246	(1)
What is Moving	247	(1)
What's It all About, Then?	248	(2)
Untitled	250	(4)
Karen Volkman
Excerpt from The First Century	251	(1)
Thomas Traherne
The Collar	252	(1)
George Herbert
690	253	(1)
Emily Dickinson
Excerpt from Sonnets to Orpheus	253	(1)
Rainer Maria Rilke
Your hand full of hours	254	(1)
Paul Celan
Receptivity and Resistance	254	(5)
Mysterious Matters	259	(11)
Theodore Weiss
The Windhover	262	(1)
Gerard Manley Hopkins
I wake and feel the fell of Dark, not day	263	(2)
Extraordinary References	265	(1)
Wallace Stevens
To a Lovely Old Bitch	266	(2)
William Carlos Williams
Kind Valentine	268	(2)
David Schubert
The Present	270	(4)
Theodore
Renee Weiss
Joe Wenderoth
Seizure	273	(1)
Sappho
Withstanding Seizure	274	(5)
Ex-Lover Somewhere	279	(2)
Notes	281	(6)
Acknowledgments	287	(4)
Index of Poets	291