Best Words, Best Order, 2nd Edition: Essays on Poetry
by Stephen Dobyns
List Price:
Our Price: $25.81
You Save: $4.19 (14%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $11.90 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Stephen DobynsEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-05-02
ISBN: 1403961476
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Summary of Best Words, Best Order, 2nd Edition: Essays on Poetry
In this new edition of Best Words, Best Order, Stephen Dobyns further explains the mystery of the poet's work. Through essays on memory and metaphor, pacing, and the intricacies of voice and tone, and thoughtful appreciations of Chekhov, Ritsos, Mandelstam, and Rilke, Dobyns guides readers and writers through poetry's mysterious twilight communiques. For this new second edition, Dobyns has added two new essays, one dealing with the idea of "beauty" in poetry and another dealing with the almost mystical way poets connect seemingly disparate elements in a single work.
As its title implies, Stephen Dobyns's rigorous collection of essays about poetry celebrates Coleridge's dictum that poetry is the best words in the best order. Dobyns's probing examinations of the elements of poetry--metaphor, pacing, tone--and his study of the evolution of free verse are not for Sunday-sunset versifiers. They are strenuous, meaty, and wholly satisfying fare, intended for serious students of poetry. Dobyns, the author of eight volumes of poetry (and 17 novels), believes, like Baudelaire, that "each poem ... has an optimum number of words [and] an optimum number of pieces of information ... and to go over or under even by one word weakens the whole." Poetry, he says, belongs to the reader, not the writer, and as readers, "at the close of the poem, we must not only feel that our expectations have been met but that our lives have been increased, if only to a small degree." And, if that's not challenge enough for the writer, add to it "that the conclusion of a given piece must appear both inevitable and surprising." The final third of the book comprises chapters on four writers, each of whom represents to Dobyns an ideal in poetry: Rainer Maria Rilke, who Dobyns says worked harder than any other poet to develop and change his work; Osip Mandelstam, an exemplar of moral centeredness; Anton Chekhov, for his sense of personal freedom; and Yannis Ritsos, for his "sense of the mystery that surrounds us."
Books & Reading
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Books & Reading
Good Fiction GuideOxford University Press, USA; Published: 2001-08-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.49
Price in other shops:
Plays for the Theatreby Robert J. Ball
Harcourt College Pub; Published: 2000; Paperback; Book
Best price: $59.93
Price in other shops:
Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing (9th Edition)by Edgar V. Roberts
Prentice Hall; Published: 2008-11-21; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $40.00
Price in other shops:
Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing, Compact (2nd Edition)by Edgar V. Roberts, Henry E. Jacobs
Prentice Hall; Published: 2002-06-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops:
A History of Readingby Alberto Manguel
Flamingo; Published: 1997-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.54
Price in other shops:
Great Books for Girlsby Kathleen Odean
Ballantine Books; Published: 1997-01-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.50
Price in other shops:
The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/ on Creative Nonfiction (4th Edition)by Robert L. Root, Michael J. Steinberg
Longman; Published: 2006-07-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $40.00
Price in other shops:
A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addictby John Baxter
Thomas Dunne Books; Published: 2003-12-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.98
Price in other shops:
The Encyclopedia of Fantasyby John Clute, John Grant
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1999-03-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $246.66
Angel on the Squareby Gloria Whelan
HarperCollins; Published: 2003-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.98
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty: Poemsby Tony Hoagland
Graywolf Press; Published: 2010-02-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.09
Price in other shops:
The Art of Syntax: Rhythm of Thought, Rhythm of Songby Ellen Bryant Voigt
Graywolf Press; Published: 2009-06-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.59
Price in other shops:
Wild Irisby Louise Gluck
Ecco; Published: 1993-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.90
Price in other shops:
The Art of the Poetic Lineby James Longenbach
Graywolf Press; Published: 2007-12-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.73
Price in other shops:
The Best American Poetry 2011: Series Editor David LehmanScribner; Published: 2011-09-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.58
Price in other shops:
Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craftby Tony Hoagland
Graywolf Press; Published: 2006-09-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.94
Price in other shops:
The Art of Description: World into Wordby Mark Doty
Graywolf Press; Published: 2010-07-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.71
Price in other shops:
Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetryby Jane Hirshfield
Harper Perennial; Published: 1998-08-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.26
Price in other shops:
The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradictionby Dean Young
Graywolf Press; Published: 2010-07-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.82
Price in other shops:
Next Word, Better Word: The Craft of Writing Poetryby Stephen Dobyns
Palgrave Macmillan; Published: 2011-04-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.82
Price in other shops: