Poems in the Manner Of
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Poems in the Manner Of is an illuminating journey through centuries of writers who continue to influence new work today, including that of respected poet and series editor of The Best American Poetry David Lehman.
“Very few writers can actually shape how you see the world. David Lehman is such a writer,” says Robert Olen Butler. Now the Best American Poetry series editor and New School writing professor channels, translates, and imagines a collection of “poems in the manner of” Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Shakespeare, W.B. Yeats, Rilke, William Carlos Williams, and more.
Lehman has been writing “poems in the manner of” for years, in homage to the poems and people that have left an impression, experimenting with styles and voices that have lingered in his mind. Finally, he has gathered these pieces, creating a striking book of poems that channels poets from Walt Whitman to Sylvia Plath and also calls upon jazz standards, Freudian questionnaires, and astrological profiles for inspiration.
Intelligent and sparkling, this is a great gift for poetry fans and a useful resource for creative writers. These are poems of wit and humor but also deep emotion and clear intelligence, informed by Lehman’s genuine and knowledgeable love of poetry and literature. From Catullus and Lady Murasaki to Wordsworth, Neruda, Virginia Woolf, W.H. Auden, and Charles Bukowski, Poems in the Manner Of shows how much life there is in poets of the past. And like Edward Hirsch’s How to Read a Poem and Robert Pinsky’s Singing School, this book gives you more than poetry. Whether you’re reading for pure enjoyment or examining how a poet can use references and influences in their own work, Poems in the Manner Of is a treasure trove of literary pleasures and food for thought.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Though the conceit might seem cute, Lehman (Sinatra's Century), series editor of the Best American Poetry series, brings his expert eye and deep knowledge of the writers he mimics to save this collection from feeling like a mere workshop exercise. As Lehman writes in his introduction, the work embraces "homage, parody, imitation, and appropriation, or combinations of these four things." Spanning Catullus to Joe Brainard, and employing the art of ekphrasis as much as imitation, Lehman succeeds in the task he sets for himself. These renderings are a record of poetic engagement, a sort of autobiography of what has moved the author as well as a moving summary of the author's own development. It is hard to use the term speaker here, as Lehman so readily inserts himself at the outset of every piece, offering a small anecdote as to why he has chosen this particular poet or manner to imitate. He offers disparate justifications for his choices, recalling his father, a refugee from Nazi Germany, reciting Goethe to him, and declaring that "I like emulating Frank O'Hara." Therein lies the charm of this book: Lehman's blend of whimsy and gravitas, his ability to find pleasure in almost anything while still plumbing its depths.
