From the UK Poet Laureate and bestselling translator, a spirited book
that demystifies and celebrates the art of poetry today
In A Vertical Art, acclaimed poet Simon Armitage takes a refreshingly
common-sense approach to an art form that can easily lend itself to
grand statements and hollow gestures. Questioning both the facile and
obscure ends of the poetry spectrum, he offers sparkling new insights
about poetry and an array of favorite poets.
Based on Armitage's public lectures as Oxford Professor of Poetry, A
Vertical Art illuminates poets as varied as Emily Dickinson, Walt
Whitman, Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, Ted Hughes, Thom Gunn, A. R.
Ammons, and Claudia Rankine. The chapters are often delightfully sassy
in their treatment, as in "Like, Elizabeth Bishop," in which Armitage
dissects--and tallies--the poet's predilection for similes. He discusses
Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize, poetic lists, poetry and the underworld, and
the dilemmas of translating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Armitage
also pulls back the curtain on the unromantic realities of making a
living as a contemporary poet, and ends the book with his own list of
"Ninety-Five Theses" on the principles and practice of poetry.
An appealingly personal book that explores the volatile and disputed
definitions of poetry from the viewpoint of a practicing writer and
dedicated reader, A Vertical Art makes an insightful and entertaining
case for the power and potential of poetry today.
