The Life of Poetry

by Rukeyser, Muriel

• ISBN13: 9780963818331
• ISBN10: 0963818333
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-09-01
• Publisher: Wesleyan Univ Pr

Summary

Observing that poetry is a natural part of our pastimes and rituals, Rukeyser opposes elitist attitudes and confronts Americans' fear of feeling. Multicultural and interdisciplinary, this volume makes an irrefutable case for the centrality of poetry in American life.

Table of Contents

Note From the Publisher	ix
Note From the Author	x
Acknowledgments	xii
Foreword: Meeting-Places	xiii
Jane Cooper
Introduction	1	(6)
Part One THE RESISTANCES
Chapter One	7	(16)
The Fear of Poetry	7	(4)
Process and Relationship	11	(2)
Not To Be Used	13	(1)
The King-Killers	14	(1)
The People Who Rule Out Poetry	15	(1)
What Should I Be Feeling?	15	(2)
Waste, and the Emotional Life	17	(3)
The Meanings of Poetry	20	(1)
The Invitation	20	(3)
Chapter Two	23	(6)
The Universe of Poetry	23	(1)
A History of Images	23	(1)
An Age Opening	24	(1)
Art in Life	25	(1)
The Usable Truth	26	(3)
Chapter Three	29	(12)
The Security of the Imagination	29	(3)
Gesture and Image	32	(3)
John Brown, Carossa, and Some Others	35	(2)
Two Symbols	37	(2)
Poetry and Belief	39	(2)
Chapter Four	41	(20)
Toward the Most Human; Intensity Within Form	41	(2)
The Impoverishment of Imagination	43	(1)
The Damages to the Audience	44	(4)
The ``Corruption of Consciousness''	48	(2)
Artist, Artwork, and Audience	50	(2)
The Damages to the Artist	52	(2)
The Language of Distress	54	(1)
A Way of Giving: The Full-Valued	55	(6)
Part Two BACKGROUNDS AND SOURCES
Chapter Five	61	(24)
A Culture in Conflict	61	(3)
Backgrounds and Sources	64	(2)
To Tend Toward Democracy	66	(1)
Melville and the Problem of Evil	67	(5)
Whitman and the Problem of Good	72	(10)
The Poets of Outrage and the Poets of Possibility	82	(3)
Chapter Six	85	(18)
Choice and the Past	85	(1)
The Buried History: Some Ritual Chants	86	(2)
The Promise of Function	88	(1)
Certain Misfortunes	89	(1)
The Lost, the Anonymous, the Dream-Singers	90	(2)
James Gates Percival	92	(2)
Secretary and the Gibbs Papers	94	(2)
Concealment and the Artist	96	(1)
The Singing Bones	97	(6)
Part Three THE ``USES'' OF POETRY
Chapter Seven	103	(16)
The Arts of Amusement: A Dance Sequence	103	(2)
Songs of Children	105	(4)
The Blues: Handy, Leadbelly, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie Smith	109	(4)
``Link O'Day'' to Bop	113	(3)
Silence and Punctuation	116	(1)
Song and Poem	117	(2)
Chapter Eight	119	(14)
The Darkening of the House	119	(2)
Everything You Need	121	(1)
The Language of Our Theater	122	(7)
Dance, Pantomime, a Juggler, the Divine Service	129	(2)
Radio and the Void: The Articulate	131	(2)
Chapter Nine	133	(26)
The Imagists and Mental Imagery	133	(1)
Writing and the ``Arts of Sight''	133	(1)
A Few Painters	134	(2)
A Graphics Workshop	136	(2)
Posters, Photographs, and Sequence-Writing	138	(3)
The Screenwriter and the Cutting Room	141	(2)
The Relationship of Images	143	(5)
Going to the Movies	148	(1)
Documentary and Some Other Experiments	148	(3)
The Freeing of the Sound Track	151	(2)
Language and the Flow of Images	153	(1)
Ajanta	153	(6)
Part Four THE LIFE OF POETRY
Chapter Ten	159	(14)
The Rare Union: Poetry and Science	159	(3)
The Unity of Imagination	162	(1)
A Remark by Baudelaire	163	(2)
The Life of the Symbols	165	(2)
The Arrangement Is the Life	167	(1)
Message and Image: Dante	168	(1)
The Motion of Images	169	(2)
Form, Time, Tension	171	(1)
The Exchange	172	(1)
Chapter Eleven	173	(16)
A Lightning Flash	173	(1)
Poet, Poem, and Witness	174	(3)
Adam Who Dares	177	(1)
The Completion of Experience	177	(1)
A Poetry Workshop	178	(3)
A Way I Write	181	(5)
The Poem Seen as System	186	(3)
Chapter Twelve	189	(20)
Out of Childhood	189	(20)
Chapter Thirteen	209	(8)
Meanings of Peace	209	(1)
The Climate of Poetry	210	(1)
War and Weakness	211	(1)
Confession and Testimony	212	(1)
An Appropriate Aggression	213	(1)
Things Near Their Birth	213	(1)
The Life of Poetry	213	(1)
Poetry and Peace	214	(3)
Index	217