This Art: A Copper Canyon Ares Poetica Anthology
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About this ebook
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
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This Art - Michael Wiegers
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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