Peters, Robert

The Great American Poetry Bake-Off: Second Series

ISBN: 0810815028
Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1982. First Softcover Edition. Softcover. "Above all qualities, I desire energy in poetry. I am unhappy with work that reports in enervated and boring fashion the interminable prosaic actions of "I." Also suspect are poems that editorialize; I prefer to work out implicit meanings for myself. Poems that sentimentalize over children, dead relatives, lost youth, primitive folk gone sour, and slippery nature-transcendentalisms dismay me- as does that fashionable bit of tatting, the modern Memento Mori Poem, in which a recumbent poet, generally middle-aged, reviews some of the tepid events of his life, meditates on a seashell or a eucalyptus tree, and with much self-pity, considers his eventual demise. Also enervated are those gray poems, esoteric myth-loaded Olsonesque argosies with their paper sails and sawdust contraband." (from Preface, "The Joys of Cooking- A Critic's Perspective") Here is the second (of four) compilations of poetry criticism by Robert Peters (1924-2014), the great American poet, playwright, scholar & critic. Peters' acclaimed criticism gathered in this collection encompasses some of the well-known exponents of various schools & eras (John Ashbery, Ted Berrigan, Robert Creeley, James Dickey, Clayton Eshleman, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth Koch, Lew Welch et al.) to the unjustly less-famous & even obscure, such as Kenward Elmslie & Alfred Starr Hamilton. This is the first softcover edition, published simultaneously with the first hardcover edition, with a hilarious caricature-illustration of Peters by his Daughter Meredith Peters reproduced on front cover. The second of Peters' cornerstone compilations of his visceral, vigorous, most insightful & entertainingly irreverent criticism; a must for the Peters collector & poetry practitioner-scholar. In very fine condition with only very mild rubbing, a few short, faint creases & lightest browning to front, back covers & spine; mildest wear & a few tiny bumps at edges & corners of same. Interior very fine with only small-to-tiny creases & bumps at all corners of lower & some upper page leaves. Very Fine. [Item #3317]

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