Synopses & Reviews
WESTERN WIND is an introduction to the elements of craft that make poetry sing, a superior anthology of classic and contemporary poetry, and a guide for students to poetics, writing about poetry, and critical theory. In this text, two well respected poets bring their love of the craft of poetry into a book that teaches as well as inspires. The text also includes exercises, chapter summaries, games, diagrams, illustrations, and 4-color reproductions of great works of art.
About the Author
David Mason was born and raised in Bellingham, Washington, and received degrees from The Colorado College and the University of Rochester. He spent most of his twenties traveling and working as a manual laborer, with a brief stint working for a film company. He has taught at Minnesota State University, Moorhead, and is now on the faculty of The Colorado College. He lives in the mountains outside Colorado Springs.Masons two prize-winning books of poems are The Buried Houses (1991) and The Country I Remember (1996). With Mark Jarman he co-edited Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism (1996; reprinted 1998) and with the late John Frederick Nims Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry (2000). His collection of literary essays, The Poetry of Life and the Life of Poetry, appeared in 2000. Mason is also a memoirist, fiction writer and frequent book reviewer.Born in Muskegon, Michigan, John Frederick Nims received his M.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of Chicago. He has taught poetry and given workshops in poetry at Notre Dame, the University of Toronto, the University of Illinois at Urbana, Harvard University, Willialms College, the University of Florida, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the universities of Florence and Madrid and has been on the staff of many writers conferences, including the one at Bread Loaf, Vermont, where he taught for more than ten years. He is the author of eight books of poetry among them, The Iron Pastoral, Knowledge of the Evening (a National Book Award nominee), The Kiss: A Jambalaya, Zany in Denim, andThe Six Cornered Snowflakebooks that have brought him awards from The National Foundation of Arts and Humanities, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Brandeis University, which awarded him its Creative Arts Citation in Poetry. He has been the Phi Beta Kappa poet at the College of William and Mary and at Harvard University. He has also published several books of translations, including Sappho to Valery: Poems in Translation, The Poems of St. John of the Cross, and The Complete Poems of Michelangelo and edited The Harper Anthology of Poetry. Several times on the staff of Poetry (Chicago), he was its editor from 1978 to 1984. In 1982, he was awarded the Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets; in 1986, a Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry; in 1991, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry.
Table of Contents
*- indicates selection or author is new to this edition PREFACE Before We Begin Part One: The Senses 1. WHERE EXPERIENCE STARTS: The Image The Role of the Senses *Jim Moore The Same Life Anonymous Western Wind Archibald Macleish Eleven Sappho There's A Man T.S. Eliot Preludes Anonymous Brief Autumnal The Specific Image Ezra Pound In A Station Of The Metro Alba ("As cool as the pale wet leaves...") Anthony Hecht The End Of The Weekend Anonymous Sir Patrick Spens Exercises and Diversions Brewester Ghiselin Rattler, Alert Sappho Leaving Crete, Come Visit Again Essay and Poem *Jim Moore Haiku/Touch 2. WHAT'S IT LIKE? Simile, Metaphor and Other Figures Simile and Metaphor Robinson Jeffers The Purse-Seine Robert Frost The Silken Tent Emily Dickinson My Life Had Stood--A Loaded Gun Linda Pastan Returning Margaret Atwood Habitation William Butler Yeats No Second Troy Robert Frost A Patch Of Old Snow *Al Young Up Vernon's Alley Helen Chasin City Pigeons Analogy Walter de la Mare All But Blind Synesthesia Allusion Alexander Pope Intended For Sir Isaac Newton *Michael Donaghy Local 32B Personfication, Mythology Karl Shapiro A Cut Flower William Butler Yeats Leda And The Swan Walter Savage Landor Dirce Exercises and Diversions Alan Shapiro Against Poets Essays and Poems 3. SYMBOLISM: The Broken Coin Synecdoche, Metonymy *Mary Jo Salter A Poetics of Sex The Symbol Howard Nemerov Money *Jenn Habel Another Poem About the Heart George Herbert Hope William Blake The Sick Rose Robert Frost Acquainted With The Night Saint John Of The Cross The Dark Night Thing-Poems Rainer Maria Rilke The Merry-Go-Round William Carlos Williams Nantucket *Frank O'Hara Why I am Not a Painter Allegory Sir Thomas Wyatt My Galley Charged with Forgetfulness Kingsley Amis A Note on Wyatt Billy Collins The Death of Allegory Exercises and Diversions John Crowe Ransom Good Ships Carl Sandburg A Fence Essays and Poems 4. DOUBLE VISION: Antipoetry, Paradox, and Irony Antipoetry William Shakespeare Winter Francis P. Osgood Winter Fairyland In Vermont Elizabeth Bishop Filling Station Walt Whitman Beauty William Shakespeare Sonnet 130 Paradox Robert Graves The Face in the Mirror Alexander Pope From An Essay on Man Irony *Wilfred Owen The Parable of the Old Man and the Young Understatement--The Withheld Image Simonides On the Spartan Dead at Thermopylae X.J. Kennedy Loose Woman Overstatement Robert Graves Spoils Exercises and Diversions Rod Taylor Dakota: October, 1822: Hunkpapa Warrior Wallace Stevens The Emperor Of Ice-Cream Essays and Poems Part Two: The Emotions. 5. THE COLOR OF THOUGHT: Emotions in Poetry The Role of Emotion William Butler Yeats The Spur Dick Davis Desire *Heather McHugh Earthmoving Malediction Ammianus Epitaph of Nearchos *Michael McFee Time Enough W.H. Auden The Shield of Achilles Sense and Sentimentality Anonymous The Unquiet Grave *Julia Moore Little Libbie John Crowe Ransom Bells For John Whiteside's Daughter Algernon Charles Swinburne Étude Réaliste (I) James Wright A Song for The Middle of the Night May Swenson Cat and The Weather William Stafford Traveling Through The Dark *Richard Wilbur The Pardon Exercises and Diversions Kenneth Fearing Yes, The Agency Can Handle That Essays and Poems Part Three: The Words. 6. MACHINE FOR MAGIC: The Fresh Usual Words Living Words Kenneth Patchen Moon, Sun, Sleep, Birds, Live Robert Frost Dust of Snow; Neither Out Far Nor In Deep Emily Dickinson A Narrow Fellow in The Grass Less Is More Alfred, Lord Tennyson Break, Break, Break A.E. Housman Along the Field as We Came By William Butler Yeats An Irish Airman Foresees His Death Ezra Pound The Bath Tub Hilaire Belloc On His Books William Stafford Godiva County, Montana W.H. Auden The Wanderer *Roger Mitchell The Word for Everything *Emily Grosholz Remembering the Ardeche Exercises and Diversions Randall Jarrell The Knight, Death, and the Devil Essays and Poems Part Four: The Sounds. 7. GOLD IN THE ORE: Sound as Meaning *Kay Ryan Crustaceon Isalnd Gail Tremblay Not Sense Vowels and Assonance Dylan Thomas Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night Robert Frost Once By The Pacific E.E. Cummings Chansons Innocentes, I *Christian Bök Vowels Consonants and Alliteration Exercises and Diversions John Milton On the Late Massacre in Piedmont Essays and Poems 8. WORKING WITH GOLD: Rhyme and Music Language as Mimicry John Updike Player Piano *Anne Stevenson Making Poetry A Reason for Rhyme? *Etheridge Knight A Poem for Myself Ezra Pound Alba ("When the nightingale . . .") Off-Rhyme or Slant Rhyme Wilfred Owen Anthem For Doomed Youth; Arms and the Boy *Thomas McGrath Remembering the Children of Auschwitz The Music of Poetry William Butler Yeats The Lake Isle of Innisfree *Anonymous Sumer Is Icumen In *Ezra Pound Ancient Music Anonymous The Streets of Laredo Charles Causley Lord Lovelace Exercises and Diversions *Timothy Murphy Twice Cursed; Poets Prayer Edwin Arlington Robinson The Dark Hills Essays and Poems Part Five: The Rhythms 9. THE DANCER AND THE DANCE: The Play of Rhythms Rhythm Repetition as Rhythm Robert Graves Counting The Beats Walt Whitman From Leaves of Grass The Rhythm of Accent A Note on Scansion Iambic Pentameter Variations on Iambic William Shakespeare Sonnet 66 Meter and Rhythm William Butler Yeats The Second Coming Line Length Matthew Arnold Dover Beach *May Swenson Question Theodore Roethke My Papa's Waltz Exercises and Diversions William Browne On the Countess Dowager of Pembroke Katherine McAlpine That Ghastly Night in Dover Essays and Poems 10. DIFFERENT DRUMMERS: Alternative Forms of Meter Other Syllable-Stress Rhythms George Gordon, Lord Byron The Destruction Of Sennacherib *Timothy Murphy Harvest of Sorrows Strong-Stress Rhythms Anonymous I Have Labored Sore Richard Wilbur Funk *Anonymous How Many Miles to Babylon? E.E. Cummings if everything happens that can't be done *W.H. Auden As I Walked Out One Evening Sprung Rhythm A Word about Quantity *Timothy Steele Sapphics against Anger Syllabic Meter James Tate Miss Cho Composes in the Cafeteria *Ron Rash Scarecrow Exercises and Diversions Essays and Poems 11. REMOVING THE NET: "Free Verse," Concrete Poetry, Prose Poems Some Background on Free Verse *H.D. Oread *William Carlos Williams Dedication for a Plot of Ground Line Breaks Stephen Crane A Man Said to the Universe *Denise Levertov The Ache of Marriage *George Oppen Psalm *Suzanne Lummis Morning After the 6.1 *Rachel Loden The Killer Instinct The Variable Foot William Carlos Williams The Descent Concrete and Shaped Poetry Emmett Williams Like Attracts Like Hanjorg Mayer Oil *Jan D. Hodge Carousel The Prose Poem *Robert Hass A Story About the Body *Marie Howe Part of Eves Discussion *Jay Meek Trains in Winter Exercises and Diversions William Carlos Williams Iris Essays and Poems Part Six: The Mind. 12. THE SHAPE OF THOUGHT: Sentences and Structure The Sentence Eugenio Montale The Eel Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool Use of Connectives Jacques Prevert The Message Parallelism Walt Whitman I Hear America Singing *Shirley Geok-Lin Lim Learning to Love America Sentence Structure