Oberlin College Press

POETS READING:

The FIELD Symposia (edited by David Walker)

Paper $25.00 (ISBN 0-932440-84-3)

Almost every year since 1979, FIELD magazine has celebrated the work of a major modern poet in a unique symposium: a number of current poets are invited to choose favorite poems by the featured poet and explore them in short essays. The results have become one of the most popular features of the magazine: passionate, insightful and often provocative, the FIELD symposia reassert poetry as a living art, charged with immediacy and excitement.

Poets Reading assembles the first eighteen symposia, on Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, Eugenio Montale, Robert Francis, Pablo Neruda, Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hayden, Randall Jarrell, William Stafford, Miroslav Holub, and W. S. Merwin. This collection is a thoughtful exploration of the poetic legacy of the twentieth century, and a rich testimonial to the continuing vitality of poetry today.

David Walker is also the editor of American Alphabets: 25 Contemporary Poets and the revised edition of A FIELD Guide to Contemporary Poetry and Poetics.

Contents

Preface

1. Emily Dickinson

Essays by Nancy Willard, Charles Simic, David Walker, Stanley Plumly, Martha Collins, and David Young

2. Gerard Manley Hopkins

Essays by Charles Wright, Gerald Stern, David Young, Lee Upton, Dennis Schmitz, Stanley Plumly, and Marianne Boruch

3. Wallace Stevens

Essays by Dennis Schmitz, Philip Booth, Alberta Turner, Laura Jensen, Maxine Kumin, David Young, Shirley Kaufman, William Stafford, Albert Goldbarth, Stanley Plumly, Pamela Stewart, Marvin Bell, and David Walker

4. William Carlos Williams

Essays by Donald Justice, Marvin Bell, Marcia Southwick, Donald Hall, David Walker, Miroslav Holub, Charles Simic, Gerald Stern, Stanley Plumly, and Paul Mariani

5. Ezra Pound

Essays by Donald Hall, William Matthews, Stanley Plumly, James Laughlin, Norman Dubie, Carol Muske, and Charles Wright

6. Marianne Moore

Essays by Lynne McMahon, David Walker, Barbara Molloy-Olund, Stanley Plumly, Lee Upton, and David Young

7. Anna Akhmatova

Essays by Lenore Mayhew, Alberta Turner, Marcia Southwick, Judith Hemschemeyer, Deborah Digges, David Young, and Marilyn Krysl

8. Osip Mandelstam

Essays by Franz Wright, Agha Shahid Ali, David Young, Sylva Fischerova, Martha Collins, and Robert Bly

9. Eugenio Montale

Essays by Sandra McPherson, Jerome Mazzaro, David St. John, Dana Gioia, James Merrill, Sonia Raiziss, David Young, Reg Saner, and Charles Wright

10. Robert Francis

Essays by David Young, Donald Hall, Robert Wallace, Alberta Turner, Richard Wilbur, and David Walker

11. Pablo Neruda

Essays by Marianne Boruch, David Young, David St. John, Robert Bly, and William O'Daly

12. Theodore Roethke

Essays by Marianne Boruch, Thomas Lux, Alberta Turner, Martha Collins, Gerald Stern, and Beckian Fritz Goldberg

13. Elizabeth Bishop

Essays by Sandra McPherson, David Walker, Elizabeth Spires, Marianne Boruch, Sherod Santos, J. D. McClatchy, Alberta Turner, and Jean Valentine

14. Robert Hayden

Essays by Alberta Turner, Niccolo N. Donzella, W. D. Snodgrass, Calvin Hernton, Anthony Walton, and Yusef Komunyakaa

15. Randall Jarrell

Essays by Laura Jensen, Bruce Weigl, C. D. Wright, Fred Chappell, David St. John, Ralph Burns, David Young, Nancy Willard, Marianne Boruch, and David Walker

16. William Stafford

Essays by Charles Simic, Henry Taylor, Jonathan Holden, Margaret Atwood, Linda Pastan, Tom Andrews, Alberta Turner, and David Young

17. Miroslav Holub

Essays by Edward Hirsch, Larry Levis, Dennis Schmitz, Sylva Fischerova, and Tom Andrews

18. W. S. Merwin

Essays by Bruce Beasley, David Walker, C. D. Wright. James Baker Hall, David Young, Christopher Merrill, William Matthews, and Carol Muske