Negative Capability

by Gregerson, Linda

• ISBN13: 9780472067770
• ISBN10: 047206777X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-10-01
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

In a wide-ranging and fiercely intelligent series of readings, Linda Gregerson presents an eloquent overview of the contemporary American lyric. This lyric is distinguished, she argues, not only by its unprecedented variety and abundance, but by its persistent and supple engagement with form. In detailed examinations of work by John Ashbery, Mark Strand, Louis Gluuml;ck, James Schuyler, Muriel Rukeyser, C. K. Williams, Rita Dove, Philip Levine, Heather McHugh, William Meredith, John Hollander, and a host of other recent and contemporary poets, Gregerson documents the depth and richness of American lyric production at the turn of the twenty-first century. In its scruples and reservations as in its discriminating explanations,Negative Capabilityunearths the contours of a distinctive American poetic tradition. This book is a rich symbiosis of critical and poetic intelligence. It is also a work of passionate advocacy. The book will appeal to those interested in the current state of American poetry: practicing poets, readers and students of literature and literary criticism, professional critics. Linda Gregerson is an acclaimed poet and literary critic. She is author ofThe Reformation of the Subject: Spenser, Milton, and the English Protestant Epicand two poetry collections,The Woman Who Died in Her SleepandFire in the Conservatory.She is Associate Professor of English at the University of Michigan, where she heads the Visiting Writers Program.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(4)
Negative Capability	5	(25)
Mark Strand
A Cradle of String	30	(6)
May Swenson
Eight Women Poets	36	(15)
Sharon Olds
Mary Oliver
Celia Gilbert
Gjertrud Schnackenberg
Susan Tichy
Erica Funkhouser
Mekeel McBride
Rita Dove
My Lady's Damask Cheek	51	(10)
James Schuyler
Little Sun	61	(4)
Pamela Alexander
Literacies	65	(17)
Jane Shore
Jane Kenyon
William Meredith
Howard Nemerov
C. K. Williams
John Hollander
Plenitude	82	(14)
Richard Howard
Margaret Gibson
Muriel Rukeyser
Alice Jones
Among the Wordstruck	96	(5)
John Ashbery
Heather McHugh
Unequal Seas	101	(19)
Dennis Schmitz
Thomas Lux
Cynthia Macdonald
God's Concern for America	120	(12)
Charles Wright
Tess Gallagher
Gerald Stern
Philip Levine
The Sower against Gardens	132
Louise Gluck