Word Play Place: Essays on the Poetry of John MatthiasRobert Thomas Archambeau The poetry of John Matthias has long been admired by other poets for the way it refuses to be categorized. Lyrical and experimental, cosmopolitan and rooted in place, it challenges our received notions of what poetry can be at the end of the twentieth century. This volume introduces the work of this significant American poet to readers previously unfamiliar with it and enriches the reading of those who have long admired it. The essays collected here treat Matthias's career from its beginnings under the tutelage of John Berryman and Yvor Winters through its engagement with modern and postmodern poetics. With contributions from John Peck, Michael Anania, Peter Michelson, and ten other critics, Word Play Place is the first sustained treatment of the poetry of this writer who stands outside the mainstream of American poetry in our time, and is guided by an aesthetic that has not been easy to define. This collection emphasizes how readers ought to approach Matthias's work in all its ambition, its richness, and its strangeness. |
Contents
Introducing John Matthias | 1 |
My Treason and My Tongue | 26 |
Two Poems and the Aesthetics of Play | 35 |
Copyright | |
10 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
actual American anamnesis appears attempt becomes beginning British called Chicago Compostela Diptych contemporary course cultural David described Diptych dream East Anglian empty space England English essay experience fact feeling field figure final flight French Friends Gathering ground heraldic human identity imaginative John Matthias Jones Jones's kind land language later leaves lines linguistic living London matter Matthias Matthias's Matthias's poem means memory Mother move nature Northern Summer notes offers Ohio opening particular past perhaps phrase play poem poem's poet poet's poetic poetry political Press proper names question reference reflects refrain regrounding Review rhetoric Robert seems sense sentimental sequence silence song sound space speaker structure suggests Swallow takes things tion Trans Turns University voice walk whole Wind writing