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A Poetry of Two Minds
Contributor(s): Santos, Sherod (Author)
ISBN: 0820322040     ISBN-13: 9780820322049
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
OUR PRICE:   $24.65  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: July 2000
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Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Annotation: The Life of Poetry: Poets on Their Art and Craft offers books by poets writing prose on their alluring and elusive genre. These books will help readers to understand the poems on the page as much as they help poets to understand the mechanics of the process. These vital and engaging books articulate the literary vision, aesthetic beliefs, and pleasure in poetry in a way only practicing poets can, and contribute to the long and lively tradition of poets writing on their art and craft.

In his long-awaited first book of prose, poet and essayist Sherod Santos takes a compelling look into some of poetry's deepest secrets, an investigation that leads him to the surprising conclusion that poems have minds of their own, minds often inaccessible even to the one who composed them.

In these essays, Santos explores not only what he thinks about poetry but also what and how poetry thinks about itself. His writings range across the history of Western poetry, from formative classical myths to modern experimental forms, and touch on subjects as diverse as the rhetorical history of cannibalism, the political and cultural uses of translation, and the current state of American poetry. Along the way, he calls on past poets like Ovid, Baudelaire, and Phyllis Wheatley, on twentieth-century poets like Wallace Stevens, H. D., and Rainer Maria Rilke, and on writers and thinkers like Montaigne, Walter Benjamin, Simone Weil, and Paul de Man.

These essays explore facets of poetry known best to one who has practiced the art for years. From the methods of poetic attention to the processes by which perception is transformed into language and from the illusive relationship between poetry and "meaning" to theintegral relationship between poetry and memory, this collection delves into what it means to be a poet and how being a poet is intimately tied to one's social and cultural moment.

With Santos's trademark flair for seeking out the overlooked and unforeseeable, A Poetry of Two Minds is an extraordinary collection that testifies to its author's far-reaching intellectual curiosity. Readers who have delighted in his insights over the years can now have the satisfaction of having them caught between the covers of this provocative book.

Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Literary Criticism | Poetry
- Literary Criticism | American - General
- Literary Collections | Essays
Dewey: 811.509
LCCN: 99057977
Series: Life of Poetry: Poets on Their Art and Craft
Physical Information: 0.59" H x 5.51" W x 8.2" (0.90 lbs) 208 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:

In his long-awaited first book of prose, poet and essayist Sherod Santos takes a compelling look into some of poetry's deepest secrets, an investigation that leads him to the surprising conclusion that poems have minds of their own, minds often inaccessible even to the one who composed them.

In these essays, Santos explores not only what he thinks about poetry but also what and how poetry thinks about itself. His writings range across the history of Western poetry, from formative classical myths to modern experimental forms, and touch on subjects as diverse as the rhetorical history of cannibalism, the political and cultural uses of translation, and the current state of American poetry. Along the way, he calls on past poets like Ovid, Baudelaire, and Phyllis Wheatley, on twentieth-century poets like Wallace Stevens, H. D., and Rainer Maria Rilke, and on writers and thinkers like Montaigne, Walter Benjamin, Simone Weil, and Paul de Man.

These essays explore facets of poetry known best to one who has practiced the art for years. From the methods of poetic attention to the processes by which perception is transformed into language and from the illusive relationship between poetry and "meaning" to the integral relationship between poetry and memory, this collection delves into what it means to be a poet and how being a poet is intimately tied to one's social and cultural moment.

With Santos's trademark flair for seeking out the overlooked and unforeseeable, A Poetry of Two Minds is an extraordinary collection that testifies to its author's far-reaching intellectual curiosity. Readers who have delighted in his insights over the years can now have the satisfaction of having them caught between the covers of this provocative book.


Contributor Bio(s): Santos, Sherod: - SHEROD SANTOS is the author of four volumes of poetry, most recently The Pilot Star Elegies, which was nominated for the National Book Award. In 1999 he received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia.