Product Description

Poetry has never been so rigorous and diverse, nor has its audience been so numerous and engaged. Strong words? Not if the poets are right. As Ezra Pound wrote: 'You would think anyone wanting to know about poetry would go to someone who knew something about it.' That's exactly what Bloodaxe has done with this judicious and comprehensive selection of British, Irish and American manifestos by some of modern poetry's finest practitioners.

Opening the 20th century account with Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats and T.S. Eliot, the book moves through key later figures including W.H. Auden, Ted Hughes, Stevie Smith and Dylan Thomas. America is richly represented too, from Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams to the influential New England poets Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath.

Strong Words then brings the issues fully up to date with over 30 specially commissioned statements from contemporary writers including Seamus Heaney, Andrew Motion, Simon Armitage, Selima Hill, Paul Muldoon and Douglas Dunn, amounting to a new overview of the poetry being written at the start of the 21st century.

For poets and readers, for critics, teachers and students of creative writing and contemporary poetry, this is essential reading. As well as representing many of the most important poets of the last hundred years, Strong Words charts many different stances and movements, from Modernism to Postmodernism, from Futurism to the future theories of poetry. This landmark book champions the continuing dialogue of these voices, past and present, exploring the strongest form that words can take: the poem.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #27781 in Books
• Published on: 2000-10-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 316 pages

BBC Radio 3
‘utterly compelling . . . Strong Words brings together a diverse collection of essential commentaries in a single volume.’

Financial Times
‘indispensable’

Times Literary Supplement
‘one turns to verse after reading Strong Words with new energy, inspiration and insight.’

Customer Reviews

An absorbing, indispensible collection of writings on poetry
I have an old dog-eared copy of James Scully's 'Modern Poets on Modern Poetry' to which I have returned continuously over the years, as a dog to its bowl. But where Scully left off - with Charles Olson, Strong Words is just beginning. Not only does it add fifty badly needed years to this anthology of prose writings on poetry, but it also takes the brave, challenging step of mixing existing work with pieces commissioned from some of the finest contemporary writers - what the editors describe as 'the explicit manifesto and the unguarded moment.' Editors Herbert and Hollis are themselves poets of some considerable repute and though I would have liked to have seen a more even balance between American and Commonwealth writers, their selection is entertaining, illuminating and at times provocative. This anthology is full of gems for the aspiring writer and the informed reader, from the old chestnut of Pound's Imagist manifesto to pieces which themselves slip over into poetry - Don Paterson's wonderfully succinct and absorbing Aphorisms are a good example. Whether you are interested in poetry, teach poetry or write poetry, this book should be an essential part of your toolkit. There really is something in here for everyone.