Tributes
American Writers on American Writers
Published on 21. January 2014
405 pages
978-1-4804-6389-9 (ISBN)
Description
Rick Moody on John Cheever; Ben Marcus on Dr. Seuss; Mona Simpson on Henry James: Forty-five essays by great writers, about great writers.
For Tributes, Conjunctions invited a number of contemporary writers to pay homage to American literary masters who made something possible for them-whether that was the act of writing itself, writing a certain book, writing in a particular manner, or living in a way that was consonant with the act of writing. This is an anthology of personal enthusiasms, a colloquium Whitman might have seen as a progress of vistas. John Sayles offers an appreciation of Nelson Algren, Robert Creeley of Edwin Arlington Robinson, Nathaniel Mackey on Walt Whitman. And then there's Rick Moody on John Cheever, Ben Marcus on Dr. Seuss, Mona Simpson on Henry James, Ana Castillo on Anaïs Nin, Anne Waldman on Jack Kerouac, Lydia Davis on Edward Dahlberg. All in all, forty-five authors share compelling tales of their adopted literary parentage.
For Tributes, Conjunctions invited a number of contemporary writers to pay homage to American literary masters who made something possible for them-whether that was the act of writing itself, writing a certain book, writing in a particular manner, or living in a way that was consonant with the act of writing. This is an anthology of personal enthusiasms, a colloquium Whitman might have seen as a progress of vistas. John Sayles offers an appreciation of Nelson Algren, Robert Creeley of Edwin Arlington Robinson, Nathaniel Mackey on Walt Whitman. And then there's Rick Moody on John Cheever, Ben Marcus on Dr. Seuss, Mona Simpson on Henry James, Ana Castillo on Anaïs Nin, Anne Waldman on Jack Kerouac, Lydia Davis on Edward Dahlberg. All in all, forty-five authors share compelling tales of their adopted literary parentage.
More details
Persons
Bradford Morrow is the editor of
Conjunctions and the recipient of the PEN/Nora Magid Award for excellence in literary editing. The author of six novels, his most recent books include the novel
The Diviner's Tale (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and the fiction collection
The Uninnocent (Pegasus Books). He is currently at work on a collaboration with virtuoso guitarist Alex Skolnick,
A Bestiary. A Bard Center fellow and professor of literature at Bard College, he lives in New York City.
Martine Bellen's most recent collection of poetry is Wabac Machine (Furniture Press Books). Her other books include GHOSTS! (Spuyten Duyvil Press) and The Vulnerability of Order (Copper Canyon Press).
Lee Smith has published twelve novels and four fiction collections, including the forthcoming Guests on Earth (Algonquin Books). She is a recipient of the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and a Southern Book Critics Circle Award.
Martine Bellen's most recent collection of poetry is Wabac Machine (Furniture Press Books). Her other books include GHOSTS! (Spuyten Duyvil Press) and The Vulnerability of Order (Copper Canyon Press).
Lee Smith has published twelve novels and four fiction collections, including the forthcoming Guests on Earth (Algonquin Books). She is a recipient of the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the North Carolina Award for Literature, and a Southern Book Critics Circle Award.
Content
- Intro
- Cover
- Title Page
- CONTENTS
- EDITORS' NOTE
- Ntozake Shange, Sterling Brown: A Southern Man
- John Sayles, Chicago Guy: Nelson Algren
- Maureen Howard, My Willa
- Bradford Morrow, The Emerson Madrigal
- Cole Swensen, For M. Moore
- Robert Creeley, Old Poets, Old Poems: Edwin Arlington Robinson
- Jim Lewis, Melville and the Art of Saying No
- Amiri Baraka, Black Reconstruction: Du Bois & the U.S. Struggle for Democracy & Socialism
- Eli Gottlieb, Panels for Nathanael
- Joanna Scott, How to Tell a Lie, by Edgar Allan Poe
- Peter Straub, 45 Calibrations of Raymond Chandler
- Paul Metcalf, Ezra Pound: A Seereeyus Precursor
- Ellen McLaughlin, On Lillian Hellman
- Anne Waldman, Language, Voice, Beat, Energy in the Poetry: Jack Kerouac
- Lynne Tillman, Edith Wharton: A Mole in the House of the Modern
- Paul West, The Sound of the Fury: Faulkner's Aerial Surf
- Elaine Equi, Frank O'Hara: Nothing Personal
- Kevin Young, Langston Hughes: "If You Can't Read, Run Anyhow!
- Ben Marcus, Chemical Seuss
- Carole Maso, A Novel of Thank You (for Gertrude Stein)
- Lisa Shea, Divining Stein
- Mona Simpson, Henry James
- Will Alexander, Bob Kaufman: The Footnotes Exploded
- Rick Moody, John Cheever and Indirection
- Nathaniel Mackey, Phrenological Whitman
- Sven Birkerts, Elizabeth Bishop's Prose: Atmospheres of Identity
- Ana Castillo, Anaïs Nin, All the Rest Is Origami
- Siri Hustvedt, Gatsby's Glasses
- Quincy Troupe, The Visible Man: Ralph Ellison
- Dale Peck, Shirley Jackson: "My Mother's Grave Is Yellow
- C. D. Wright, Frank Stanford, Of the Mulberry Family: An Arkansas Epilogue
- Phillip Lopate, The Strange Case of Dr. Eiseley
- Steve Erickson, Henry Miller: Exhibitionist of the Soul
- Mac Wellman, Bierce
- Lawrence Osborne, Frederick Prokosch
- Diane Williams, To Dickinson
- Robert Kelly, Robert Duncan & The Right Time
- Victor Hernández Cruz, Encounters with an Americano Poet: William Carlos Williams
- Catherine Bowman, Sylvia's Honey
- Lydia Davis, Broaching Difficult Dahlberg
- Norma Cole, For Lorine Niedecker
- David Means, Now Let Us Praise James Agee
- Jonathan Williams, Kenneth Patchen: "Hiya, Ken Babe, What's the Bad Word for Today?
- Joyce Carol Oates, The Visionary Art of Henry David Thoreau
- Donald Revell, Joyful Noise: The Gospel Sound of Henry D. Thoreau
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND PERMISSIONS
- NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
- Copyright
