The Strangest of Theatres explores how poets who are willing to
venture beyond our borders can serve as envoys to the wider world and
revitalize American poetry in the process. What are they looking for
when they leave? What do they find? How does their experience shape
them, and what is revealed when they sit down at their desks and take up
the pen?
Original and reprinted essays by contemporary poets who have spent time
abroad address questions of estrangement, identity, and home. These
reflections represent a diverse atlas of experience from authors such as
Kazim Ali, Elizabeth Bishop, Naomi Shihab Nye, Nick Flynn, Yusef
Komunyakaa, Claudia Rankine, Alissa Valles, and many others.
Following these literary reflections is a roundtable conversation among
fourteen poets as well as a section that provides practical re-sources
for finding work abroad, applying for fellowships and residencies,
funding a trip, obtaining proper travel documents, and attending to
other cultural considerations. This inspiring, useful book addresses
concerns relevant to any American writer preparing to go abroad, already
traveling, just returning, or simply dreaming of the faraway.