The role of the poet, Mary Kinzie writes, is to engage the most profound
subjects with the utmost in expressive clarity. The role of the critic
is to follow the poet, word for word, into the arena where the creative
struggle occurs. How this mutual purpose is served, ideally and
practically, is the subject of this bracingly polemical collection of
essays.
A distinguished poet and critic, Kinzie assesses poetry's situation
during the past twenty-five years. Ours, she contends, is literally a
prosaic age, not only in the popularity of prose genres but in the
resultant compromises with truth and elegance in literature. In essays
on the rhapsodic fallacy, confessionalism, and the romance of perceptual
response, Kinzie diagnoses some of the trends that diminish the poet's
flexibility. Conversely, she also considers individual poets--Randall
Jarrell, Elizabeth Bishop, Howard Nemerov, Seamus Heaney, and John
Ashbery--who have found ingenious ways of averting the risks of prosaism
and preserving the special character of poetry.
Focusing on poet Louise Bogan and novelist J. M. Coetzee, Kinzie
identifies a crucial and curative overlap between the practices of great
prose-writing and great poetry. In conclusion, she suggests a new
approach for teaching writers of poetry and fiction. Forcefully
argued, these essays will be widely read and debated among critics and
poets alike.