The Lyric and Modern Poetry: Olson, Creeley, Bunting (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780820405339)

The lyric poem has long been considered a timeless form, and rigid lyric conventions inform most modern poetry and criticism. Yet these conventions are not indicative of anything essentially poetic ; rather, they hide our culture's fundamental contempt for poetry, our refusal to take it seriously. They can help even a great poet to dismiss his own work as unimportant, as in the case of W.H. Auden; or they can provide the focus for an all-out attack on the Western metaphysical tradition, as in the case of Charles Olson. Because poets like Olson, Robert Creeley, Basil Bunting, and Louis Zukofsky question the assumptions most central to a lyric genre, it is their writing that best exposes, and best resists, our deep distrust of poetry.

Author: Brian Conniff
ISBN-10: 0820405337
ISBN-13: 9780820405339
Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publi
Language: English
Published: 07/01/1988
Pages: 218
Format: Hardcover