Review: Can Poetry Matter?
Recensione editoriale - Kirkus ReviewsAs a nonacademic poet and critic (for years he was a business executive), Gioia is rightfully appalled at the capture of poetry by the English departments of the land, and at how, in this enervating captivity, it has become trivialized, been made uniform, and lost all general readership. In his title essay, Gioia makes an unobjectionable analysis of how this happened, and even laudably goes further with a few corrective ideas. Some seem easy enough to accomplish (such as encouraging poets at poetry readings to read others' poetry as wall as their own), others harder (encouraging a more rigorous criticism of poetry, à la Randall Jarrell, not the usual praise-your-pals stuff). Having made so lucid a diagnosis, Gioia the critic opens himself up to inevitable and somewhat unenviable scrutiny--as he gets down to cases in the essays that follow. He is no Jarrell himself. He aims a howitzer at Robert Bly (which is a little like shooting fish in a barrel); devotes much approving (and vaguely self-congratulatory) energy to the echt-bourgeois-businessman-poet Wallace Stevens; and makes serf-consciously lonely pleas for Robinson Jeffers, Weldon Kees, and Ted Kooser--poets whose marginality Gioia prefers to see as neglect rather than as mediocrity. The sense you finally come away with is wistfulness: a good mind paddling manfully on, looking for an intellectual mainstream it never quite finds--and that may never have been there in the first place.
Review: Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture
Recensione dell'utente - Leanna - GoodreadsThis was an interesting book. First, a tangent: from what I've heard, Gioia is like a poetry Republican. By that I mean (1) he's into connecting to the good ol' regular people with his writing and (2 ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture
Recensione dell'utente - William Torgerson - GoodreadsThis book showed me how much I didn't know about poetry. It caused me to be a more determined student while doing an MFA in Creative Writing at Georgia College and State University. Leggi recensione completa
Review: Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture
Recensione dell'utente - Charity - GoodreadsA National Treasure. If you have an interest in poetry, this is a must. Leggi recensione completa
Review: Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture
Recensione dell'utente - Barbara - GoodreadsI wish I would have read this in 1992 when it was published, because Gioia's argument has lost its relevancy. Poetry has had a renaissance since the 90's, thank god, and I believe many of the concerns ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture
Recensione dell'utente - lucke1984 - GoodreadsI haven't completed this book and likely never will. The title had been on my mind and I hoped to find an answer in these pages. Unfortunately the piece is academic and relegates itself to obscurity ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture
Recensione dell'utente - CLM - GoodreadsI heard Dana Gioia speak tonight at the JFK Library, and he was delightful (even handled a heckler with aplomb). Leggi recensione completa
Review: Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture
Recensione dell'utente - Caroline - GoodreadsBecause I love graphs, here's a little hedonic calculus. The spike towards the end of the book corresponds to his essay on Elizabeth Bishop. Graph Overall, not bad, but not especially insightful ... Leggi recensione completa
Review: Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture
Recensione dell'utente - Christine - GoodreadsWonderful, critical essays on what it means to be a poet today and issues that plague the "poetry subculture." Also great critical reviews of poets. An absolute must for young poets. Leggi recensione completa
Review: Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture
Recensione dell'utente - julia - Goodreadsthis book gave me hope, to know someone else was thinking of these things even if they are not important to most of the world. Leggi recensione completa
