Quote Poet Unquote: Contemporary Quotations on Poets and Poetry

by O'Driscoll, Dennis

• ISBN13: 9781556592706
• ISBN10: 1556592701
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-04-01
• Publisher: Consortium Book Sales & Dist

Summary

"One of the best-read men in the Western world" is how Poetry Review describes Irish poet-critic Dennis O'Driscoll. Quote Poet Unquote, his compilation of contemporary quotations on all things poetry-related, proves that judgment spot on. The book grew out of O'Driscoll's column "Pickings and Choosings" for Poetry Ireland Review, and contains nearly two thousand smart sayings obsessively gleaned from six hundred sources-including powerhouse critics, prize-winning poets, world leaders, and newspaper headlines. The voices in this volume are by turns provocative, deadpan, humorous, and inspirational: "If you dribble past five defenders, it isn't called sheer prose."-Tom Leonard "I do not give the honorific name of poetry' to the primitive and the unaccomplished."-Helen Vendler, The New York Times "I started a PhD in English at the University of Chicago because I loved poetry-which I now realize is like saying I studied vivisection because I loved dogs."-Michael Donaghy, Verse Organized by headings as forthright as "What Is It Anyway?" as playful as "Prose and Cons" and "No, Thanks" (on bad poetry), this collection is both a reference work and a supremely entertaining take on the poetry world. Quote Poet Unquote offers incontrovertible evidence-thousands of pieces of it-that poetry, and the passionate discourse it generates, is alive and kicking. Dennis O'Driscoll, former editor of Poetry Ireland Review, is the author of seven books of poetry and a collection of essays. He lives in Ireland.

Table of Contents

What Is It Anyway?	p. 3
Defining Moments	p. 9
Making a Start	p. 18
Inspired Moves	p. 25
Subject Matter	p. 27
Workshops and Class Conflicts	p. 33
Nuts and Bolts	p. 39
Formal or Informal?	p. 45
The Begetters	p. 54
Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know	p. 57
Character References	p. 60
Poetic Recognition	p. 70
Poetic License	p. 74
Call Yourself a Poet?	p. 77
Best Words	p. 80
Marketing the Stuff	p. 88
Profit Motives	p. 91
Poet at Work	p. 93
In Memory	p. 103
The Audience	p. 105
Communals and Loners	p. 109
The Whole Truth	p. 112
Among Women	p. 118
Sex, Love, and Marriage	p. 123
Prose and Cons	p. 133
Visualizing a Poem	p. 142
Only Joking	p. 144
Poetic Drive	p. 147
Readings	p. 149
No, Thanks	p. 157
On the Contrary	p. 161
In and Out of Fashion	p. 165
Youth and Age	p. 167
Pushy Poets	p. 171
Getting into Difficulty	p. 176
What It All Means	p. 186
Poetry in Emotion	p. 188
Word Count	p. 192
Original Angles	p. 195
The Poetry Cure	p. 200
Poetry Politics	p. 208
Making Nothing Happen	p. 217
Making Something Happen	p. 219
Musical Arrangements	p. 223
U.S. Poetry	p. 227
British Poetry	p. 232
Irish Poetry	p. 235
Home and Abroad	p. 238
Prize Poetry	p. 242
In Critical Mood	p. 245
Lost in Translations	p. 249
Anthologies	p. 257
Poetry at War	p. 260
Celebration, Consolation, Lamentation	p. 263
Holy Writ	p. 267
Closed Shop	p. 272
Present, Past, and Future	p. 275
Alcohol and Pub Talk	p. 280
Physical Poetry	p. 282
Labels and Categories	p. 286
Moving On	p. 288
Beyond Words	p. 293
Post-Poetry Tristesse	p. 298
Death by Poetry	p. 301
Index	p. 305
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.