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toniclark's review against another edition
5.0
Tony Hoagland, Twenty Poems That Could Save America and Other Essays
Oh Tony, how I loved reading this book! This is Hoaglands second collection of essays. I read the first, Real Sofistikashun, and don’t remember being so bowled over, but perhaps I’ll read it again. At a different time of life, the same book seem a different book entirely.
The first few essays in Twenty Poems That Could Save America (even their titles excite me) concern diction, idiom (he’s all for common speech — think William Stafford, Billy Collins) — the shape and structure of poems, and their effects.
— Je Suis ein Americano: The Genius of American Diction
— Idiom, Our Funny Valentine
— Litany, Game, and Representation: Charting the Course from the Old to the New Poetry
— Poetic Housing: Shifting Parts and Changing Wholes
— Facts and Feelings: Information, Layering, and the Composite Poem
— Vertigo, Recognition, and Passionate Worldliness
These chapters are followed by several on specific poets, such as Dean Young; Frank O’Hara et al., Sharon Olds; Marie Howe, Jane Hirshfield, and Linda Gregg; and Bly. I was less interested in the chapters on specific poets. I liked best the one on Sharon Olds and least the one on Bly.
But the last, the title essay (which originally appeared in Harper’s online), about contemporary poetry and its potential (rightful?) place in American contemporary life, is the best and brightest. I wanted to underline everything. I have already reread more than once. Hoagland has strong opinions about the importance of language and poetry, how language has been co-opted and corrupted by business, politics, the media, and how its modern uses have made us distrustful — of language! It’s true.
I know that poets and critics are always going on about whether or not poetry is relevant to contemporary life and about how maligned poetry is. People I know don’t so much say they dislike it as that they don’t understand it. And, indeed, Hoagland maintains that many people think that poetry belongs to high culture and that they’re not clever enough to understand it or else that poetry just has nothing to say to them, nothing practical to say about the world.
As a remedy, Hoagland argues for an overhaul of the way poetry is taught in school, as well as a big change in the specific poems taught, so that poetry can be seen as contemporary and vital and full of meaning for ourselves, our country, the world. He believes that poetry can elevate our level of discourse, enrich us and our culture. He offers 20 poems that he believes have a lot to say to the citizens of contemporary America — not the only 20 such poems out there, but a selection. And they are wonderful. They reward many rereadings and endless musing.
Overall, a wonderful and passionate book about both the practice of poetry and the ways in which it can enrich our lives — "...for poetry is our common treasure house, and we need its aliveness, its respect for the subconscious, its willingness to entertain ambiguity; we need its plaintive truth telling about the human condition and its imaginative exhibitions of linguistic freedom, which confront the general culture's more grotesque manipulations. We need the emotional training sessions poetry conducts us through. We need its previews of coming attractions: heartbreak, survival, failure, endurance, understanding, more heartbreak."
Aslide: I was perplexed by the inclusion in Hoagland’s 20 of Whitman’s “I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.” It’s a poem I’ve always disliked, but then I’m strongly opposed to championing anti-intellectualism. There’s a place for gazing at the stars, sure, but there’s also a place for learning. And how much more astounding the heavens, how much greater our wonder, when our gazing is informed by science!
Oh Tony, how I loved reading this book! This is Hoaglands second collection of essays. I read the first, Real Sofistikashun, and don’t remember being so bowled over, but perhaps I’ll read it again. At a different time of life, the same book seem a different book entirely.
The first few essays in Twenty Poems That Could Save America (even their titles excite me) concern diction, idiom (he’s all for common speech — think William Stafford, Billy Collins) — the shape and structure of poems, and their effects.
— Je Suis ein Americano: The Genius of American Diction
— Idiom, Our Funny Valentine
— Litany, Game, and Representation: Charting the Course from the Old to the New Poetry
— Poetic Housing: Shifting Parts and Changing Wholes
— Facts and Feelings: Information, Layering, and the Composite Poem
— Vertigo, Recognition, and Passionate Worldliness
These chapters are followed by several on specific poets, such as Dean Young; Frank O’Hara et al., Sharon Olds; Marie Howe, Jane Hirshfield, and Linda Gregg; and Bly. I was less interested in the chapters on specific poets. I liked best the one on Sharon Olds and least the one on Bly.
But the last, the title essay (which originally appeared in Harper’s online), about contemporary poetry and its potential (rightful?) place in American contemporary life, is the best and brightest. I wanted to underline everything. I have already reread more than once. Hoagland has strong opinions about the importance of language and poetry, how language has been co-opted and corrupted by business, politics, the media, and how its modern uses have made us distrustful — of language! It’s true.
I know that poets and critics are always going on about whether or not poetry is relevant to contemporary life and about how maligned poetry is. People I know don’t so much say they dislike it as that they don’t understand it. And, indeed, Hoagland maintains that many people think that poetry belongs to high culture and that they’re not clever enough to understand it or else that poetry just has nothing to say to them, nothing practical to say about the world.
As a remedy, Hoagland argues for an overhaul of the way poetry is taught in school, as well as a big change in the specific poems taught, so that poetry can be seen as contemporary and vital and full of meaning for ourselves, our country, the world. He believes that poetry can elevate our level of discourse, enrich us and our culture. He offers 20 poems that he believes have a lot to say to the citizens of contemporary America — not the only 20 such poems out there, but a selection. And they are wonderful. They reward many rereadings and endless musing.
Overall, a wonderful and passionate book about both the practice of poetry and the ways in which it can enrich our lives — "...for poetry is our common treasure house, and we need its aliveness, its respect for the subconscious, its willingness to entertain ambiguity; we need its plaintive truth telling about the human condition and its imaginative exhibitions of linguistic freedom, which confront the general culture's more grotesque manipulations. We need the emotional training sessions poetry conducts us through. We need its previews of coming attractions: heartbreak, survival, failure, endurance, understanding, more heartbreak."
Aslide: I was perplexed by the inclusion in Hoagland’s 20 of Whitman’s “I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.” It’s a poem I’ve always disliked, but then I’m strongly opposed to championing anti-intellectualism. There’s a place for gazing at the stars, sure, but there’s also a place for learning. And how much more astounding the heavens, how much greater our wonder, when our gazing is informed by science!
karencarlson's review
4.0
I’m always looking for ways to improve my embarrassingly low poetry reading ability, so when I saw this collection of essays on contemporary poetry, I jumped at it.
Some of the essays review poetic techniques: diction, something he calls poetic housing, and composite poems. Others look at individual poets: Sharon Olds, Robert Bly. Others talk about specific categories of poetry: the New York School, spiritual poems. And the title essay, saved for last, bemoans the teaching of poetry and makes some suggestions for a core curriculum, and what life lessons that curriculum might teach.
I picked a terrible time to read this, however: I was in the middle of a move, so my concentration was terrible. I plan to buy a used copy to use when I tackle the next Pushcart; not sure it'll help, but it can't hurt.
FMI see my blog post at A Just Recompense.
Some of the essays review poetic techniques: diction, something he calls poetic housing, and composite poems. Others look at individual poets: Sharon Olds, Robert Bly. Others talk about specific categories of poetry: the New York School, spiritual poems. And the title essay, saved for last, bemoans the teaching of poetry and makes some suggestions for a core curriculum, and what life lessons that curriculum might teach.
I picked a terrible time to read this, however: I was in the middle of a move, so my concentration was terrible. I plan to buy a used copy to use when I tackle the next Pushcart; not sure it'll help, but it can't hurt.
FMI see my blog post at A Just Recompense.
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