The Cure of Poetry in an Age of Prose by Mary Kinzie

The Cure of Poetry in an Age of Prose by Mary Kinzie

The role of the poet, Mary Kinzie writes, is to engage the most profound subjects with the utmost in expressive clarity. The role of the critic is to follow the poet, word for word, into the arena where the creative struggle occurs. How this mutual purpose is served, ideally and practically, is the subject of this bracingly polemical collection of essays. A distinguished poet and critic, Kinzie assesses poetry's situation during the past twenty-five years. Ours, she contends, is literally a prosaic age, not only in the popularity of prose genres but in the resultant compromises with truth and elegance in literature. In essays on "the rhapsodic fallacy," confessionalism, and the romance of perceptual response, Kinzie diagnoses some of the trends that diminish the poet's flexibility. Conversely, she also considers individual poets—Randall Jarrell, Elizabeth Bishop, Howard Nemerov, Seamus Heaney, and John Ashbery—who have found ingenious ways of averting the risks of prosaism and preserving the special character of poetry. Focusing on poet Louise Bogan and novelist J. M. Coetzee, Kinzie identifies a crucial and curative overlap between the practices of great prose-writing and great poetry. In conclusion, she suggests a new approach for teaching writers of poetry and fiction. Forcefully argued, these essays will be widely read and debated among critics and poets alike.

Mary Kinzie is a critic and poet. She is an English professor and the director of Northwestern University's creative writing program, where she teaches poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry and the O. Henry Prize from the Folger Shakespeare Library.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780226437361
ISBN 10	0226437361
Title	The Cure of Poetry in an Age of Prose
Author	Mary Kinzie
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	The University of Chicago Press
Year published	1993-07-15
Number of pages	362
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.