What Will Suffice

by Buckley, Christopher; Merrill, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9780879056926
• ISBN10: 0879056924
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-09-01
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith

Summary

A poem is a moral and mythic construct. Each decision the writer makes concerning the subject matter, form, diction, and tone reveals something about his or her vision of the world. Nowhere is that vision more on display than in an ars poetica, which is where a poet takes stock, writing down his or her articles of faith. An ars poetica is also a barometer for the cultural climate of one's times, and what the "readings" contained in this book suggest about post-Cold War America is that there are countless ways to interpret and transform our experiences. In the new world order the theater has changed yet again: the rise of ethnic conflict, neofascism, nationalism, and religious fundamentalism; the depletion of the earth's resources and devastation of innumberable ecosystems; continuing economic problems in both the developed and developing parts of the world; overpoplulation, the spread of AIDS and other communicable diseases;--these are dangers everyone faces. And poets are finding, in small ways and large, what will suffice for the next act.--Christopher Merrill

Excerpts

Redwing Blackbirds by Fred DingsThis morning they came like the dyingreclaiming their old lives, delirious with joy right on the seam of spring,streaming in by the tattered thousandslike black leaves blowing back onto the trees.But the homeless know what's expected by now,and whent he farmer fired into their body,they rose all around me like tremblingblack wound gaping red at the shoulders,a river of pain draining into the sky.Tonight, as I look at the cold skyand its flock of blue-white scars,I can't yet turn from Orion's red starwhose trembling red light has travelled for yearsto die now into any eyes that will hold it.