About this title: The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in New Jersey convenes thousands of poets every two years to talk about the art and to read their poems. This book prints the interviews journalist Bill Moyers held with 11 prominent poets, including Mark Doty, Robert Pinsky, Lorna Dee Cervantes, and Marge Piercy.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Date Published: 10/1999
ISBN-13:9780688173463ISBN:0688173462
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 230 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Date Published: 10/1999
ISBN-13:9780688173463ISBN:0688173462
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 230 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Date Published: 10/1999
ISBN-13:9780688173463ISBN:0688173462
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 230 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Date Published: 10/1999
ISBN-13:9780688173463ISBN:0688173462
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. Very Good, In very good dust jacket. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 230 p. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow & Company
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780688173463ISBN:0688173462
Description: Very good in good dust jacket. Nice hard cover, lightly read, light shelf wear to dust jacket, remainder mark, stk #1116m9. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 230 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780688173463ISBN:0688173462
Description: A wonderful copy with some minor edgewear to the cover. Dust Jacket has some edgewear present. -, Hard Cover, Very Good / Very Good. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780688173463ISBN:0688173462
Description: Good in Good jacket. 99-X: Good Condition: A copy that has been read, but remains in good condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact (including dust cover, if applicable). The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or be an ex-library item. Some pages or dust-jacket may have tiny tears. Books rated "Good" may have some notes, underlining, or highlighting. These books also may contain ... read more
Description: Very good. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. 1999-Hardcover----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: William Morrow & Co, Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S. A
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780688173463ISBN:0688173462
Description: Very Good in Good jacket. Price sticker on front of book. read more
"I love anything Bill Moyers does with regard to poetry. This book includes interviews with poets like Mark Doty, Jane Hirschfield and Stanley Kunitz. "Fooling with Words" and his series for PBS "The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets" and corresponding book are must haves for poetry lovers."
"Who can say anything critical of Moyers? Who wouldn't like to sit down and have a conversation with some of the best poets writing in America? Check it out."
"Fooling With Words is a collection of interviews of poets conducted by television journalist Bill Moyers at the Dodge Poetry Festival.
The Dodge Poetry Festival seems enormous and a bit weird - audiences in the thousands show up to hear some of the best poets in America read, and they clap and cheer and whoop as if they were at a rock concert. Reading about it - hearing the poets talk about their craft, about readings, and sharing their favorite poems - did a lot to restore my faith in good poetry and the existence of interesting and un-icky readings.
I think the problem comes down to how hard it is to make great poetry and how easy it is to write something that looks like a poem. More than one poet in the book compared the art to jazz, which I liked - anyone can improvise on a saxophone, but you have to learn to play before you can start making things up that are beautiful and meaningful. Sure, I can put a bunch of words on a page in a poem-like shape, but only the true poets know how hard writing poetry is.
One poet, Jane Hirshfield, was asked about her religion. Although she almost never explicitly writes about it, she is a Zen Buddhist who spent several years in a monastery. She describes herself as a "Teahouse Buddhist" - one who never overtly writes about Buddhism, but one whose poetry is filled with it. She explains: "It refers to leading your life as if you were an old woman who has a teahouse on the side of the road. Nobody knows why they like to go there, they just feel good drinking her tea. She's not known as a Buddhist teacher... all she does is simply serve tea - but still, her decades of attentiveness are part of the way she does it. No one knows about her faithful attentiveness to her practice, it's just there, in the serving of her tea and the way she cleans the counters and washes the cups."
Although Hirshfield is talking about the tacit religion in her poetry, I think that the idea can be expanded to all of poetry - great poets must be teahouse poets. No, there's no way to tell on the surface which poems have that attentiveness, which poems are filled with real subject matter, faith, and compassion. But, reading them aloud, it's there - hidden, but obviously affecting each word and line.
For example, while most amateur poetry readings I've been to focus on traditionally poetic subjects - love, death, nature, and of course, writing poetry - the poets in this book make contemporary subjects poetic: office conflicts, television, adopting a dog. Sure, all of the latter poems have a deeper layer concerning the former subjects, but the latter poems also tell a story and the latter poems are not afraid to be subtle or even a little commonplace.
The poems in Fooling With Words don't have to hide behind flowery language or the shock of private subject matter. They are simple. They sound beautiful because the poets have toiled over word choice and rhythm and meter, and then they have worked even harder to make all of their hard work hidden - to make it look clean and easy and natural.
I'm still not sure if I want to go to any more literary reading and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be one of the 4,000 people doing the wave for Kurtis Lamkin at the Dodge Poetry Festival. But it is good to know that there are some wonderful contemporary poets out there, working away quietly in their teahouses."
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