The Poetry of Bob Dylan
Thirty Essays on Thirty Songs
Published on 16. October 2025
Book
Hardback
240 pages
979-8-7651-2418-5 (ISBN)
Description
Through short essays, leading poetry critics and Bob Dylan experts analyze songs from a range of perspectives to illuminate the songs' poetic and literary character.
An innovative resource for Bob Dylan fans and scholars alike, these thirty essays by leading scholars of poetry, music, and literature illustrate how and why the work of the 2016 Nobel Literature Laureate is in fact so literary. Examining how Dylan's lyrics shape or get shaped by vocalization, performance, instrumentation, film, recording technologies, and the forces of history unfolding around him, this collection models a range of ways to understand the songs as poetical phenomena by answering questions like: How can we read and understand Dylan's lyrics as poetry? How do those lyrics build on, dialogue with, and expand the poetic tradition? How does Dylan's style change over time while both pushing and responding to changes in the world of popular music? Collecting archival research, close reading, musical analysis, and various modes of cultural criticism under one cover, The Poetry of Bob Dylan: Thirty Essays on Thirty Songs stakes a claim to Dylan's central place in the history of American poetry.
An innovative resource for Bob Dylan fans and scholars alike, these thirty essays by leading scholars of poetry, music, and literature illustrate how and why the work of the 2016 Nobel Literature Laureate is in fact so literary. Examining how Dylan's lyrics shape or get shaped by vocalization, performance, instrumentation, film, recording technologies, and the forces of history unfolding around him, this collection models a range of ways to understand the songs as poetical phenomena by answering questions like: How can we read and understand Dylan's lyrics as poetry? How do those lyrics build on, dialogue with, and expand the poetic tradition? How does Dylan's style change over time while both pushing and responding to changes in the world of popular music? Collecting archival research, close reading, musical analysis, and various modes of cultural criticism under one cover, The Poetry of Bob Dylan: Thirty Essays on Thirty Songs stakes a claim to Dylan's central place in the history of American poetry.
Reviews / Votes
In The Poetry of Bob Dylan, editor Mike Chasar has gathered thirty virtuosic readings of individual Dylan songs by leading scholars in the fields of poetry and poetics, sound studies, and popular culture. In illuminating what the Nobel prize committee calls Dylan's "poetic expressions," these smart and engaging analytical essays move beyond the fantasy of poetry as a detached page-bound relic. Instead, they provide us with a guide to the multiple ways we listen to, store, playback-and play with-literary objects. Appropriate for both long-time researchers and readers new to these fields, this book is a key entry in the study of Bob Dylan's work and a powerful introduction to the expanded literary field of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. * John Melillo, Associate Professor of English, University of Arizona, USA * The Poetry of Bob Dylan constitutes a much-needed literary reckoning with specific important works from across Dylan's working life as a writer. These thirty brief essays, carefully composed by thirty different literary scholars concerning thirty distinct songs, speak not only to a new generation of Dylan students and listeners but also to the future-a future that will relate to these songs as the artistic creations of a great poet. * Robert Boschman, Professor of American Literature, Mount Royal University, Canada *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
504 gr
ISBN-13
979-8-7651-2418-5 (9798765124185)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2025
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€98.99
Available for download
E-Book
09/2025
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€98.99
Available for download
Person
Mike Chasar is Professor of English at Willamette University, USA. He is the author of Poetry Unbound: Poems and New Media from the Magic Lantern to Instagram (2020) and Everyday Reading: Poetry and Popular Culture in Modern America (2012).
Content
List of Contributors
Introduction: The Poetry of Bob Dylan by Mike Chasar (Willamette University, USA)
1. "Talkin' New York" (1962) by Lesley Wheeler (W&L University, USA)
2. "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" (1963) byPeter Miller (Reed College, USA)
3. "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" (1964) by Joanna Davis-McElligatt (University of North Texas, USA)
4. "My Back Pages" (1964) by Matthew Kilbane (Notre Dame University, USA)
5. "It Ain't Me, Babe" (1964) by Marsha Bryant (University of Florida, USA)
6. "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (1965) by Angela Sorby (Marquette University, USA)
7. "She Belongs to Me" (1965) by Jeremy Yudkin (Boston University, USA)
8. "Like a Rolling Stone" (1965) by Linda Kinnahan (Duquesne University, USA)
9. "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" (1965) by T. Urayoan Noel (New York University, USA)
10. "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35" (1966) by Loren Glass (University of Iowa, USA)
11. "Visions of Johanna" (1966) by Melissa Girard (Loyola University Maryland, USA)
12. "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" (1966) by Chip Tucker (University of Virginia, USA)
13. "Lay, Lady, Lay" (1969) by Virginia Jackson (University of California Irvine, USA)
14. "Sign on the Window" (1970) by Steven Rings (University of Chicago, USA)
15. "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" (1971) by Stephanie Burt (Harvard University, USA)
16. "Tangled Up in Blue" (1975) by Anne Margaret Daniel (The New School University, USA)
17. "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" (1975) bu Bartholomew Brinkman (Framingham State University, USA)
18. "Hurricane" (1975) by William J. Maxwell (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
19. "Joey" (1976) by Sean Latham (University of Tulsa, USA)
20. "Man Gave Names to All the Animals" (1979) by Ryan Topper (Western Oregon University, USA)
21. "Jokerman" (1983) by Michael Thurston (Smith College, USA)
22. "I and I" (1983) by David Caplan (Southern Methodist University, USA)
23. "Brownsville Girl" (1986) by Ryan Hibbett (Northern Illinois University, USA)
24. "Man in the Long Black Coat" (1989) by Taylor Black (Duke University, USA)
25. "Stack a Lee" (1993) by Kirsten Bartholomew Ortega (University of Colorado Colorado Springs, US)
26. "Not Dark Yet" (1997) by Aldon Lynn Nielsen (Independent Scholar)
27. "Highlands" (1997) by Marit J. Macarthur (University of California, Davis, USA)
28. "Tin Angel" (2012) by Richard F. Thomas (Harvard University, USA)
29. "My Own Version of You" (2020) by Adam Bradley (University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
30. "Murder Most Foul" (2020) by Thomas Palaima (University of Texas at Austin, USA)
Bonus Track: "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" (1973) by Mike Chasar (Willamette University, USA)
Index
Introduction: The Poetry of Bob Dylan by Mike Chasar (Willamette University, USA)
1. "Talkin' New York" (1962) by Lesley Wheeler (W&L University, USA)
2. "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" (1963) byPeter Miller (Reed College, USA)
3. "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" (1964) by Joanna Davis-McElligatt (University of North Texas, USA)
4. "My Back Pages" (1964) by Matthew Kilbane (Notre Dame University, USA)
5. "It Ain't Me, Babe" (1964) by Marsha Bryant (University of Florida, USA)
6. "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (1965) by Angela Sorby (Marquette University, USA)
7. "She Belongs to Me" (1965) by Jeremy Yudkin (Boston University, USA)
8. "Like a Rolling Stone" (1965) by Linda Kinnahan (Duquesne University, USA)
9. "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" (1965) by T. Urayoan Noel (New York University, USA)
10. "Rainy Day Women #12 and 35" (1966) by Loren Glass (University of Iowa, USA)
11. "Visions of Johanna" (1966) by Melissa Girard (Loyola University Maryland, USA)
12. "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" (1966) by Chip Tucker (University of Virginia, USA)
13. "Lay, Lady, Lay" (1969) by Virginia Jackson (University of California Irvine, USA)
14. "Sign on the Window" (1970) by Steven Rings (University of Chicago, USA)
15. "Tomorrow Is a Long Time" (1971) by Stephanie Burt (Harvard University, USA)
16. "Tangled Up in Blue" (1975) by Anne Margaret Daniel (The New School University, USA)
17. "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" (1975) bu Bartholomew Brinkman (Framingham State University, USA)
18. "Hurricane" (1975) by William J. Maxwell (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
19. "Joey" (1976) by Sean Latham (University of Tulsa, USA)
20. "Man Gave Names to All the Animals" (1979) by Ryan Topper (Western Oregon University, USA)
21. "Jokerman" (1983) by Michael Thurston (Smith College, USA)
22. "I and I" (1983) by David Caplan (Southern Methodist University, USA)
23. "Brownsville Girl" (1986) by Ryan Hibbett (Northern Illinois University, USA)
24. "Man in the Long Black Coat" (1989) by Taylor Black (Duke University, USA)
25. "Stack a Lee" (1993) by Kirsten Bartholomew Ortega (University of Colorado Colorado Springs, US)
26. "Not Dark Yet" (1997) by Aldon Lynn Nielsen (Independent Scholar)
27. "Highlands" (1997) by Marit J. Macarthur (University of California, Davis, USA)
28. "Tin Angel" (2012) by Richard F. Thomas (Harvard University, USA)
29. "My Own Version of You" (2020) by Adam Bradley (University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
30. "Murder Most Foul" (2020) by Thomas Palaima (University of Texas at Austin, USA)
Bonus Track: "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" (1973) by Mike Chasar (Willamette University, USA)
Index