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A sample of literary criticism by Anne Stevenson. |
| Five Looks at Elizabeth Bishop : |
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Click on a picture for a larger version.
Click here for back page text only. |
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| On
Poetry and Science: |
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"A
bad habit we've acquired...is that of separating science
- knowledge - from poetry, a word derived from the Greek
poiein, to make or create. The war between science and
the arts probably flared up towards the end of the eighteenth
century, in England at the time of Blake, and later Keats, when
philosophical systems based on skepticism and abstract reasoning
threatened the poets' delight in the mysterious. Wordsworth,
though, in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads looked
forward to a time when "the poet will lend his divine spirit
to the transfigurations" that he foresaw science bringing about.
Today, science has immeasurably increased our sense of mystery,
while it has certainly created a material world in which, with
all the other species, we teeter on a razor's edge."
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From
BETWEEN THE ICEBERG AND THE SHIP:
University of Michigan Press, Poets on Poetry Series, 1998 |
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| On
Symbols: |
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"Surely
language and mathematics are different ways of using symbols
to communicate meaning. Mathematical formulae do express limited,
irrefutable truths that words can't. That's probably why numbers
have been held to be supernaturally powerful in the past. But
then words can express so much else! What could be more narrowly
binding to the spirit than the principle of logic, the form
of language closest to mathematics? |
| From
an interview with Richard Poole, editor of Poetry Wales. |
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| On
Women Poets: |
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"The
women poets I favour, though feminists, have not put writing
poetry at the service of their politics. What a self-perpetuating
critical establishment, male or female, approves of or
not is fundamentally of no concern to them. For when a
poet or novelist is "really writing", as Sylvia Plath
put it-- slipping perhaps into sudden ease after a long
struggle -- then the whole labelling apparatus of criticism,
ideology, competition and self-consciousness becomes irrelevant. |
| From
Some Observations on Women and Tradition |
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| On
the Ideal Poem: |
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"In
my book, the ideal poem of the next century will
not be a game of hunt the references. It will not
be a furious tirade, or an in-depth self-interview,
or a river of tears that floods its banks with self-pity.
It will not mistake novelty for originality. It
will not be afraid of learning from the poetry of
the past, but it will not be imitative either. For
a while it may not win poetry prizes, for it won't
be written with "promotion" in mind. Nor will it
be written by a culture, a gender, a race, a nation,
a political party or a creative writing group. Although
many such influences may flow into the writing of
it, in the end it will be written by a very rare
person - a poet who is in thrall to nothing but
poetry's weird tyranny and ungovernable need to
exist." |
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From the Anthology STRONG WORDS, Bloodaxe
Books, Uk, 2000: |
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