A FIELD Guide to Contemporary Poetry and Poetics [Paperback]

One of the hallmarks of FIELD magazine has always been its attention to what poets have to say about poetry. Many of these essays--by William Stafford, Denise Levertov, Gary Snyder, Adrienne Rich, Donald Hall, Robert Bly, and Sandra McPherson, among others--have become classics. This revised and expanded collection of essays from the magazine provides a rich and stimulating perspective on the state of contemporary poetry, as seen through the eyes of the poets themselves.Preface
THE PROCESS OF WRITING
A Way of Writing — William Stafford
Work and Inspiration: Inviting the Muse — Denise Levertov
Poetic Process? — Margaret Atwood
Goatfoot, Milktongue, Twinbird: The Psychic Origins of Poetic Form — Donald Hall
Reflections on the Origins of Poetic Form — Robert Bly
Portrait of the Writer as a Fat Man: Some Subjective Ideas or Notions on the Care & Feeding of Prose Poems — Russell Edson
Poetry and Science: The Science of Poetry/The Poetry of Science — Miroslav Holub
Gorky Street: Syntax and Context — Dennis Schmitz
The Two-Tone Line, Blues Ideology, and the Scrap Quilt — Sandra McPherson
THE POETIC LINE: A SYMPOSIUM
The Working Line — Sandra McPherson
A Response to “The Working Line” — James Wright
Further Reflections on Line and the Poetic Voice — John Haines
The Line — Donald Hall
Some Thoughts about Lines — Shirley Kaufman
A Note on Prose, Verse and the Line — William Matthews
Some Thoughts about the Line — Charles Simic
THE IMAGE: A SYMPOSIUM
Image and “Images” — Charles Simic
Notes on the Image: Body and Soul — Donald Hall
Recognizing the Image as a Form of Intelligence — Robert Bly
Image and Language — Russell Edson
Noun/Object/Image — Marvin Bell
POETRY AND VALUES
Some Remarks on “Literature and Reality” — GüntlãØ