We Begin in Gladness: How Poets Progress
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
One of our most perceptive critics on the ways that poets develop poems, a career, and a life
Though it seems, at first, like an art of speaking, poetry is an art of listening. The poet trains to hear clearly and, as much as possible, without interruption, the voice of his or her mind, the voice that gathers, packs with meaning, and unpacks the language he or she knows. It can take a long time to learn to let this voice speak without getting in its way. This slow learning, the growth of this habit of inner attentiveness, is poetic development, and it is the substance of the poet’s art. Of course, this growth is rarely steady, never linear, and is sometimes not actually growth but diminishment—that’s all part of the compelling story of a poet’s way forward.
—from the Introduction
“The staggering thing about a life’s work is it takes a lifetime to complete,” Craig Morgan Teicher writes in these luminous essays. We Begin in Gladness considers how poets start out, how they learn to hear themselves, and how some offer us that rare, glittering thing: lasting work. Teicher traces the poetic development of the works of Sylvia Plath, John Ashbery, Louise Glück, and Francine J. Harris, among others, to illuminate the paths they forged—by dramatic breakthroughs or by slow increments, and always by perseverance. We Begin in Gladness is indispensable for readers curious about the artistic life and for writers wondering how they might light out—or even scale the peak of the mountain.
Craig Morgan Teicher
Craig Morgan Teicher is the author of four books of poems: Welcome to Sonnetville, New Jersey (BOA, 2021); The Trembling Answers (BOA, 2017), which won the 2015 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets; To Keep Love Blurry (BOA, 2012); and Brenda Is in the Room and Other Poems (CLP, 2007), winner of the 2007 Colorado Prize for Poetry. He also wrote Cradle Book: Stories and Fables (BOA, 2010) and the chapbook Ambivalence and Other Conundrums (Omnidawn, 2014). His first collection of essays, We Begin in Gladness, was published by Graywolf in November, 2018. Teicher edited Once and For All: The Best of Delmore Schwartz (New Directions, 2016) and serves as a poetry editor for The Literary Review. He writes about books for many publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The LA Times, and NPR. He worked for many years at Publishers Weekly and is now Digital Director of The Paris Review. He is a 2021 recipient of a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and children.
Read more from Craig Morgan Teicher
Welcome to Sonnetville, New Jersey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrenda Is in the Room and Other Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to We Begin in Gladness
Related ebooks
In the Blue Pharmacy: Essays on Poetry and Other Transformations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poet's Tomb, The: The Material Soul of Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow a Poem Can Happen: Conversations With Twenty-One Extraordinary Poets Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNext Word, Better Word: The Craft of Writing Poetry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cooling Time: An American Poetry Vigil Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Concrete and Wild Carrot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lisa Robertson's Magenta Soul Whip Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Difference Is Spreading: Fifty Contemporary Poets on Fifty Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trembling Answers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSeasonal Works with Letters on Fire Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5King Baby Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Litany of Flights: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChord Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twice Told Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFall Higher Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pajamaist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When We Were Birds: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRerun Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUpper Level Disturbances Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSwallowed Light Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Plot Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Erasures Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Borderlands and Crossroads: Writing the Motherland Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSudden Eden: Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsProfessing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Study Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIs, Is Not Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come Closer and Listen: New Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sally's Hair: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Earth to Poetry: A 30-Days, 30-Poems Earth, Self & Other Care Challenge Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Criticism For You
The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Speed Reading: How to Read a Book a Day - Simple Tricks to Explode Your Reading Speed and Comprehension Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5One Hundred Years of Solitude: A Novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moby Dick (Complete Unabridged Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Thorns and Roses: A Novel by Sarah J. Maas | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Just Kids: An Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Lincoln Lawyer: A Mysterious Profile Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Great Alone: by Kristin Hannah | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for We Begin in Gladness
2 ratings0 reviews