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This Art: A Copper Canyon Ares Poetica Anthology
This Art: A Copper Canyon Ares Poetica Anthology
This Art: A Copper Canyon Ares Poetica Anthology
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This Art: A Copper Canyon Ares Poetica Anthology

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The centuries have changed little in this art,
The subjects are still the same.—Kenneth Rexroth

Why poetry? What is poetry and why do people write it and read it? Why, as Dana Levin has written, "this urge to making a scrapbook of stars"?

Every poet, by accident or design, has responded to "Why poetry" by writing a poem about poetry (an ars poetica). Whether these poems focus on the personal, political, or philosophical, each recognizes that our world is more complicated than a direct statement.

As Marvin Bell has written, "Writing is all and everything." This anthology of poems about the art and life of poetry—which draws widely from Copper Canyon’s 30-year backlist of poetry books—proves him right.

Poets write out of love and longing:

Lord, let me live / long enough to dare /a love poem —Cyrus Cassells

Poets confront suffering:

since we will always have a suffering world, we must also always have a song.—David Budbill

And poets write in order to live fully:

We all stumble into ourselves /like this, fitting our fingers to the shape of letters,/ while the page gallops out of our reach—Rebecca Seiferle

Only poetry lasts.—Ho Xuan Huong

Michael Wiegers is the Managing Editor at Copper Canyon Press.

CONTRIBUTORS Included: [box]
Kay Boyle,
Olga Broumas,
Hayden Carruth,
Norman Dubie,
Han Shan,
Jim Harrison,
Carolyn Kizer,
W.S. Merwin,
Jane Miller,
Kenneth Rexroth,
Ruth Stone,
Anna Swir

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 1, 2013
ISBN9781619321168
This Art: A Copper Canyon Ares Poetica Anthology

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    Book preview

    This Art - Michael Wiegers

    [image: cover][image: cover]

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    Thank you. We hope you enjoy these poems.

    This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.

    Contents

    Title Page

    Note to Reader

    Introduction

    ART CLASS     James Galvin

    ONCE I GOT A POSTCARD     Jaan Kaplinski

    ALWAYS ON THE TRAIN     Ruth Stone

    ON THE SUBJECT OF POETRY     W.S. Merwin

    GEO-BESTIARY #X     Jim Harrison

    THE ALLURE OF FORMS     Coral Bracho

    365 POEMS     Ann Stanford

    POETRY     Jane Miller

    VOICES(an excerpt)     Antonio Porchia

    WHAT WE NEED WORDS FOR     Rebecca Seiferle

    GEORGI BORISOV IN PARIS     John Balaban

    SPEECH ALONE     Jean Follain

    ARS POETICA     Eleanor Wilner

    THOUGHTS ON A NIGHT JOURNEY     Tu Fu

    THE PURCHASE     Clarence Major

    YOU CAN START THE POETRY Now, OR: NEWS FROM CRAZY HORSE     Thomas McGrath

    THE USEFUL     Jean Follain

    LOVE POEM     Erin Belieu

    THESE POEMS, SHE SAID     Robert Bringhurst

    POETICS     Cesare Pavese

    WRITING CLASS     Stephen Berg

    WHY DO POETS WRITE     Richard Jones

    IN HIDING     Miklós Radnóti

    A WOMAN WRITER DOES LAUNDRY     Anna Swir

    TO WRITE MORE     Jaan Kaplinski

    LEARNING A DEAD LANGUAGE     W S. Merwin

    CALIFORNIA     Hayden Carruth

    BY THE RIVERS     Shirley Kaufman

    AFTER OUR WAR     John Balaban

    AUGUST 22, 1939     Kenneth Rexroth

    WHAT ISSA HEARD     David Budbill

    DRINKING ALONE ON A SPRING NIGHT     An Jung-sŏp

    WORD DRUNK     Jim Harison

    EPIPHANY     Elsa Cross

    A PHYSICS OF SUDDEN LIGHT     Alberto Ríos

    WRITING THE POEM     Gary Holthaus

    HOMAGE TO THE WORD-HOARD     Joseph Stroud

    THE BOOK OF QUESTIONS #XXI     Pablo Neruda

    FROM MY NOTEBOOK     Antonio Machado

    HACEDOR     Joseph Stroud

    THEORY AND PRACTICE IN POETRY     Eleanor Wilner

    LOADING A BOAR     David Lee

    IMPERFECT POETRY AND MEANINGLESS POETRY     Iijima Koichi

    TO NO ONE IN PARTICULAR     Marvin Bell

    ARS POETICA: A STONE SOUP     Norman Dubie

    THE IMPOSSIBLE INDISPENSABILITY OF THE ARS POETICA     Hayden Carruth

    WHO I WRITE FOR     Vicente Aleixandre

    STILL ANOTHER DAY #XXVIII     Pablo Neruda

    DEDICATED TO YOU     Reetika Vazirani

    SOUNDS OF THE RESURRECTED DEAD MAN’S FOOTSTEPS (#2)     Marvin Bell

    POETIC VOICE     Rebecca Seiferle

    I CAN’T WRITE A POEM ABOUT CLASS RAGE     Erin Belieu

    COMMENT ON THIS: IN THE REAL SCHEME OF THINGS, POETRY IS MARGINAL     Richard Jones

    ARS POETICA     Norman Dubie

    SOMEBODY CONSOLES ME WITH A POEM     Sándor Csoóri

    SOME PART OF THE LYRIC     Gregory Orr

    A TAO OF POETRY(an excerpt)     Sam Hamill

    ON EXPLORATION     James Galvin

    CUCINA     Martine Bellen

    ARS POETICA     Primus St. John

    POETRY READING AT THE VARNA RUINS     John Balaban

    INSTRUCTIONS TO BE LEFT BEHIND     Marvin Bell

    POEM WITHOUT MUSIC     Jose Hierro

    PARABLE OF THE VOICES     Robert Bringhurst

    RECORDING THE SPIRIT VOICES     David Bottoms

    POEM     Timothy Liu

    ARS POETICA     Dana Levin

    GOING BACK TO THE CONVENT     Madeline DeFrees

    69     Han Shan (Cold Mountain)

    POETS     Kay Boyle

    POETS     James Laughlin

    EARLY SPRING EAST OF TOWN     Yang Chu-yuan

    I KNOW HOW EVERY POET     James Laughlin

    BRAIDED CREEK(an excerpt)     Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser

    AN INTRODUCTION TO MY ANTHOLOGY     Marvin Bell

    THEY SAY     Stephen Kuusisto

    FOR THE SEVENTH DAY     Sándor Csoóri

    POEMS     Ruth Stone

    SINGING ALOUD     Carolyn Kizer

    POETRY READING     Anna Swir

    THE MEANING OF LIFE     Patricia Goedicke

    WAITING     Shirley Kaufman

    THE STORY OF THE END OF THE STORY     James Galvin

    POETRY IS VERDANT     Jaan Kaplinski

    REVISIONIST POEM—OCTAVIO PAZ     Thomas McGrath

    DO NOT SPEAK KERESAN TO A MESCALERO APACHE     Arthur Sze

    BECAUSE THE EYE IS A FLOWER WHOSE ROOT IS THE HAND,     Dennis Schmitz

    NIGHT SEASONS     Stephen Kuusisto

    OUR MOTHER TALKS ABOUT METAPHOR     Susan Griffin

    THE MOON IS A DIAMOND     Arthur Sze

    ARS POETICA     Dana Levin

    AND IT CAME TO PASS     C.D. Wright

    THE AMBASSADOR     Pablo Neruda

    WHAT KEEPS     C.D. Wright

    THE WORD BETWEN THE WORLD AND GOD     Emily Warn

    ERASING STARS     Stephen Kuusisto

    MORNING STAR     C.D. Wright

    DAILY RITUAL     Shirley Kaufman

    AT SEVENTY-FIVE: REREADING AN OLD BOOK     Hayden Carruth

    STORIES ARE MADE OF MISTAKES     James Galvin

    DADDY OUT HITCH-HIKING AT 3:00 A.M.     John Balaban

    ON THIS SIDE OF THE RIVER     Stephen Berg

    THE MAGICIAN-MADE TREE(an excerpt)     Cyrus Cassells

    PHOTOVOLTAIC     Olga Broumas

    HOMAGE TO LIFE: JULES SUPERVEILLE     Joseph Stroud

    THE SNOW AND THE PLUM—I & II     Lu Mei-p’o

    COUNTRY SCENE     Hô Xuân Hu’o’ng

    THE LAST POEM IN THE WORLD     Hayden Carruth

    About the Poets

    About the Editor

    Copyright

    Special Thanks

    In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.

    SHUNRYU SUZUKI ROSHI

    When cutting an axe handle with an axe, surely the model is at hand.

    LU CHI

    INTRODUCTION

    Anthologizing poets around a common subject in order to explore its meaning is often a woefully well-intentioned disservice to poetry. The art of poetry thrives on unpredictability and rebellion. It is the nature of poets to disagree and even to be disagreeable. Nowhere is this truer than when a poem’s subject is poetry itself. History is filled with poets arguing over their art: What is good poetry? Bad poetry? What is poetry? Theories have been forwarded, arguments made, sides taken, schools created. Poets are compelled by tradition to defend their art, but they write from a contemporary setting and are confronted by an art that is made up, in part, by common, everyday words. So what makes poetry art? How is it different from prose arts? Why does it matter so much to those who love it? Often the loudest arguments on behalf of poetry, the answers and theories of what poetry is, how it is different, and whether it matters, are made in prose. Meanwhile, the more convincing arguments are made in poems.

    As one of the oldest art forms, poetry carries a large cultural weight on its back, a reciprocal body of information and associations that inform and support the form. Poets often work out of acknowledged traditions and lineages, and their poems may be filled with allusions and secondary references. It is easy to be intimidated by poetry because of so much background information. But this information, while rewarding and of interest to the

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